The Realms of Desolation
by Turquoisephoenix
Summary: [TROC Sequel] Twenty years after the defeat of Changeling, an old enemy returns with the help of strange new powers from a desolate realm and kidnaps the heroes of Avalar. Now the fate of two realms rests in the hands of six hybrid children.
1. Crashing the Party

The Realms of Desolation

Rating: PG...for now.

Author's Notes: Well, I'm back for another installment. Last I left off, TRoC became the longest, most reviewed, and most worshipped Spyro the Dragon fanfic on the face of the Web. Can TRoD top it? Probably not, but I worked hard on this first chapter anyways.

This story takes place twenty years after TRoC, eighteen years after A Hero's Tail, and so on and so forth.

Oh, and if you haven't read The Realms of Chaos, which is also written by me, and you're reading this, 50 of the things going on will not make sense to you. At all.

READ THE REALMS OF CHAOS BEFORE READING THIS OR YOU WILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON HERE! (Note: Reading Shelter from the Rain is not required.)

That is all.

* * *

Twenty years have passed since the War of the Gigas. 

Neither Avalar nor the Dragon Realms had ever seen a time of peace that followed. After the elements of their worlds became balanced, thanks to the return of the six Gigas Crystals to their rightful home in Diamond Palace, the land of Avalar became happier. Monster populations dwindled to the point where the use of Spirit Portals became a thing of the past. Species like the Landblubbers and the Breezebuilders, for the first time in many long years of fighting, found time to bury the hatchet and become allies. Even the landscape itself seemed to bloom underneath the peace, as once completely barren lands like Scorch received springs full of flowers.

Everyone involved in the War would never forget the lives of loved ones lost, the harsh truths of life learned, and the strength received from battles won. Most of the slaves that were liberated from Castle Changeling, although they were allowed to return back home and regain their social status, could never forget all the cruelties that they had received from the now-vanquished Changeling. Some of them, especially the ones that had been imprisoned for the entire duration of Changeling's reign, had to visit shrinks in order to banish all their fears of their mistress ever returning, and a small number of the slaves died of their injuries gained over the years even after being freed.

But no lives changed greater than the lives of the four heroes that had changed the fate of an entire realm. Everyone involved in the War of the Gigas remembered the names of four brave heroes who sacrificed everything they owned in order to vanquish the evil soul of the Silver Gigas Crystal Holder: Spyro the Dragon, Ripto the Riptoc, Snowflake Laterose, and Airazor Volgeri.

Spyro, the Artisan hero of the Dragon Realms, remembered his encounter with the savage army of Changeling and used it to his advantage. The dragon conditioned his body and built up his confidence and wit so that he would never fall for an ambush like the one Changeling set up in the Mystic Mountains. He made sure that no one seeking for world domination would succeed ever again. That's why Red the Fallen Dragon Elder, even though he had the power of the Dark Gems _and _had Gnasty Gnorc as an ally, lost to Spyro.

Throughout the years, Spyro grew into a well-renowned warrior of all the dragon realms. The young dragon's body grew with his age, as it wasn't long before the teenaged dragon became a tall and proud adult that was able to walk proudly on his hind legs. He would still fight in courageous battles against foes like Ripto and Red, but for the most part, his life settled when he married the woman of his dreams.

Ripto, the reptilian sorcerer known for his repeated attempts of world domination, kept his word. As soon as the Gigas Crystals were put behind him and he was relatively free from their bound, Ripto tried several times to conquer the dragon realms as if the month spent with Spyro as a companion was nothing more than a nightmare his mind came up with. No one neither noticed nor cared that Ripto never targeted Avalar anymore. Instead, the little dictator continued on his persistent plans of world domination throughout the years.

That is, until Avalar made him his dictator. Ripto, in his prime and with a loving wife, eagerly accepted the position of Ruler of Avalar and promised never to plan anymore attacks on the dragon realms. Course, he was never told that his position had no real rank to it. Ripto and Snowflake became the figureheads of Avalar's government, while Spyro and his wife Elora ran the government. In a way, it made everyone happy. Ripto was happy because he believed that he owned a world all to himself, and everyone else was happy because Ripto decided not to try to take over worlds by force anymore.

This especially made the new head of Avalar's Scientific Facilities happy. The former lackey of Changeling known as Airazor Volgeri found exactly what to do with the ruins of his former mistress' castle near the Mystic Mountains. Using the money he had acquired from a reluctant benefactor, he turned the castle ruins into a science facility used to study the uses of magic and technology. Within three years of intense care to architecture, Volgeri Applied Science Laboratory opened to the public. He even made care to put a bronze statue of Benjamin K. Mole in the front of the facility, in honor of The Professor, who had passed away peacefully from old age.

All in all, there were no signs that the happiness that arrived in their lives was ever going to change. The only villains that entered their lives happened to be raising pestering little children, and soon, the life of a hero became all but forgotten to them.

Which is why no one could predict the arrival of a threat that would threaten to tear the fabric of the very universe apart.

* * *

Diamond Palace, the final resting place of both the Gigas Crystals and Changeling the sorceress, had also changed over the course of time. 

Over the course of the years, Diamond Palace had changed from a holy resting-place to a tourist attraction. Once the location of the sacred building became widely known throughout Avalar, tourists began to visit. It wasn't long before businesses set up establishments around the Palace, selling overpriced trinkets about the War of the Gigas and setting up tour guides around the deserted architecture. In the once-peaceful courtyard, a carnival had taken root there. Games of chance, food courts, and merry-go-rounds sat on top of ancient tile, looking very out of place. Despite the fact that Elora and Spyro were very insulted by this lack of respect for ancient history, the commercialization of Diamond Palace wasn't illegal. Instead, they had to watch as the final resting place of the Gigas Crystals fell into the dark clutches of tourism with absolutely no power to stop them.

It was midnight at the once sacred palace of the Gigas Crystals. The day was fairly normal; just a ho-hum weekday with the usual motley bunch of tourists, visitors, and families visiting Diamond Palace and buying useless junk. At this time of night, the grounds were occupied by a score of rhynocian guards, but none of them were actually doing their job. Most of them were either asleep or slacking off. Conversations of paychecks, girlfriends, and better jobs floated in the desert air. After all, everyone seemed pretty confident that no one would be able to remove the jewels from the pedestals.

The guards were so caught up in their work, or lack thereof, that they didn't notice a reptilian figure slither up the walls of Diamond Palace. Their loud conversations blocked out the unmistakable sound of claws running against stone. Before long, a cloaked figure was looking down on the twenty rhynocs guarding the Gigas Crystals from a skylight. The creature grinned and ran a claw lovingly down a weapon that was sheathed near its chest.

"Vile, worthless bags of flesh. Is this how the defeaters of Changeling guard the magic of Avalar?" The cloaked creature rasped to no one in particular. Even so, a voice appeared from above his head and answered.

"It is indeed, King of Desolation. Those crystals below are in fact the Gigas Crystals. And behind them happens to be Changeling herself incased in a-"

"I think that if I came all the way to steal them, I would know where they were being kept, Muugara. Get your carcass down here now!" The figure harshly whispered, barely struggling to keep his voice down. A shadow detached itself from the ceiling and flapped down on leathery wings. The moonlight revealed a biped dragon as tall as the cloaked figure. Everything, from the two claws on each hand and the toeless feet to the green and brown markings on his body and the blue dewy eyes that glimmered with false innocence, gave the dragon the image that some god placed him together with leftovers. Muugara tapped the red horn on his nose, signaling that he had heard.

"How many guards are in there?" The shadowed creature hissed. He looked through the diamond pane of the skylight, and added, "and it would be nice to know what weapons they were carrying."

"Exactly twenty. Most of them are armed with swords. Rather puny swords that could cut through rotten vegetables, let alone flesh." Muugara described rather plainly. Looking through the skylight and down upon his victims, he continued.

"A few of them are sleeping, so it'd be best to kill them first." At these words, the mottled dragon slipped a glove on his right hand. It was a rather simple glove in terms of looks, but when Muugara flexed his fingers, metallic claws unsheathed at the fingertips. He grinned as he examined the much more dangerous claws than the ones he was born with. Such was the rewards of a bounty hunter that could invent his own weapons. He turned to his partner, his green and brown face turned into a sneer.

"Should I help you? I haven't tested this baby out on real flesh yet. Ahhh...To feel these beautiful claws cut through the necks of-"

His boss cut off his cruel little fantasies immediately. "No. I want to savor the moment. You wait here and make sure that the Crystal of Changeling is undisturbed during the struggle." This time, it was the cloaked creature's turn to grin. "After all, I don't want to break the one thing I came to steal."

With a simple wave of his yellow-scaled hand, the intruder signaled Muugara to open the skylight. The dragon obeyed by digging the glove's claws into the cracks of the skylight and prying the crystal pane out. After a few minutes of tedious scraping against stone, Muugara removed the pane and tossed it into the courtyard. The resulting crash of ancient glasswork jolted some of the rhynocs out of their slumber, but for the most part, it was widely unnoticed.

"Perfect."

The intruder jumped through the open hole and landed gracefully right in the middle of twenty rhynoc guards. Conversation had somewhat faded when the workers had heard the crystal shatter, but for the most part, they were only aware of the intruder's presence when he was standing right in front of them. All talking ceased, but only a few of them were actually aware of any danger. Most of the rhynocs just stared at the reptile cloaked in a midnight cloak dumbly as if the figure was nothing more than a figment of their imagination.

"Hmph. I thought that I would get more of a challenge than this. All I see is twenty useless slugs fat on their own idiocy that aren't even guarding the namesake of the Avalarian Realms like they're supposed to." The creature replied casually. At this comment, one of the more foolhardy of the workers pointed a finger at the reptilian intruder and barked a comeback.

"Hey! Who do you think you are, jumping into Diamond Palace and slinging insults like that?You have no right to do that!" The rhynoc shouted. His comrades murmured in agreement. And since the intruder was outnumbered, none of the guards were really threatened by this sudden change of events in their otherwise boring evening.

A chuckle rose from the creature's lips. He reached for the hood of his cloak.

"I think I know who I am."The shadowed figure removed his hood, revealing a beaked serpent's head. Brown eyes narrowed beneath brown ridges that resembled eyebrows and a brown ridge of bone rose over the creature's head like a Mohawk.

"And I have every right to do what I am about to do." The serpent finished as he tossed his cloak to the side. His body was bright yellow but striped brown like a tiger. Thick cream-colored scales coated the serpent's belly. The only article of clothing the intruder wore was a pair of brown shorts that went to his knees. Even though the body was enmencated like it was suffering from starvation, it radiated with an aura that made the guards back away in horror. In the middle of the serpent's stomach was a scar that would never heal; a sword wound made twenty years ago on the day of Changeling's downfall.

Several of the rhynocs choked at the sight. Finally, one of the rhynocs, a former horde member of Changeling's army, found will to speak.

"Laigon?"

That single word spelled out his doom. What was once Laigon snarled like an animal and tossed the weapon that was sheathed in a belt that ran across his chest. The other guards saw only a flash of steel and then they were greeted with the view of that unfortunate rhynoc pinned to the wall, the sinister blade piercing his heart.

"Don't you ever call me Laigon again." The sinister monster roared at the rhynoc corpse. The blade that was embedded in the rhynoc's chest was a weapon that consisted of two scimitars joined together at the top of the hilts, creating a double-bladed weapon that had to be held from the middle. The reptile yanked the blade out of the body unceremoniously and let the guard fall to the floor with a thud. When he noticed that all the guards were staring at his unique blade, he waved it in the air smugly.

"Like my weapon? It has twice the killing power that Laigon's blades had. While Laigon's scimitars were nothing more than Lion Serpent blades coated with poison, I've made them better. Holding two weapons in both hands was inefficient. No wonder Laigon died at the hands of a traitor."

"But...you're Laigon." The guard that had shouted at him earlier managed to choke out. Another flash of silver shimmered in the air for a split second, and the rhynoc fell to the floor without a head.

"I'm afraid you're all mistaken. I'm not Laigon. Laigon is dead. Only Mortigon remains." The Lion Serpent hissed. Stepping over the headless body of the rhynoc guard, Mortigon twirled his blade in the air and continued on his talk as if nothing happened. "As I was saying, my blade can be held with one hand and kill a great many number of people with the ease of a swan gliding through the water of a lake. And since I learned from Laigon's mistakes, the blade is also able to cast magic. Strength lies in both the physical and magical planes. Laigon failed to see that before his death in the desert."

More than one of the rhynocs reached tentatively for the walkie-talkie or the weapons hanging on their belts, trying desperately not to attract the attention of the crazed serpent in front of them. The walkie-talkie, along with the short sword hanging on their belts, was a mandatory piece of their uniform, but only now were they going to use it for something other than prank calls. Mortigon saw this as a good excuse to attack. With a glint shining in his brown eyes, he shouted almost inhumanely,

"Allow me to demonstrate!"

Several things happened at that moment of time. As Mortigon leapt into the air, several of the braver rhynocian guards charged at him with their swords outstretched. With the grace of a dancer, Mortigon swiped with his blade while in midair and five rhynocs were beheaded at his feet. A guard tried to hit him from behind, but Mortigon was faster. With a back flip, Mortigon slammed his weapon into the guard's stomach. There wasn't even enough time for the guard to cry out in pain as his entrails rolled out onto the Palace floor.

"Run! This guy's crazy!" A janitor shouted, and several of the remaining guards followed his advice. They all raced for the exit, but they fell short. Muugara cackled in glee as they all ran headfirst into a force field he had set up around the area. As the bewildered rhynocs clawed at the invisible barrier, Mortigon finished them off with a single stroke of his lethal blade.

"Such weaklings. You don't deserve to soil the floor of Diamond Palace with your useless carcasses!" Mortigon yelled. The crazed serpent was very descript about slaying his foes, as soon, every last worker in Diamond Palace was killed. As soon as the last body hit the floor, Muugara glided out of the skylight and landed on the ground. With a swift kick, the dragon flipped a corpse over and examined the wounds created by Mortigon. An awed whistle blew from his lips.

"Wow, your scimitar sure knows how to cut through the flesh of the weak, King of Desolation!" Muugara exclaimed. With several skips and hops over the widening pools of blood on the floor, the dragon went where Mortigon happened to be standing; in front of the eight Gigas Crystals. When Muugara caught a good glance at the beautifully cut gems in front of him, his wide blue eyes dilated in excitement.

"Shall I commence with the extractions, my liege?" Muugara asked Mortigon, bowing hastily as he did so. For a while, Mortigon said nothing. Instead, he stared at the circle of the six elemental Gigas Crystals and the two more powerful gems contained within the circle. With a smile, he remembered how the elements could be used in so many ways. Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver, and Purple; each of the Gigas Crystals had their own element of Avalar in command, and each did so in ways that couldn't even be imagined. Trees being moved in the Rainforests of Mist, a small Riptoc changed into a hulking monster with claws and fangs, and the ability to read minds were just some of the powers that the Gigas Crystals could grant to anyone lucky enough to be their Holders.

But still, their power was meaningless in comparison to the White and Black Gigas Crystals that sat on their pedestals in the middle of the circle. Complete opposites to each other in terms of magic, the Black Gigas Crystal could kill as many people as the commander wanted, and the White Gigas Crystal could bring as many people as the commander wanted back to life. The War of the Gigas ended in that very fashion, in which two large armies fell to the power of the Black Gigas and then were brought back from the dead with the White Gigas.

But, while their power seemed tempting to Mortigon, the Black and White Gigas Crystals weren't the objects that he seeked. Death by the Gigas Crystals seemed all too simple, and even so, the black gem and the white gem in front of him weren't actually solid to the touch. Otpir and Passiflora, the ever-persistent Guardians of the White and Black Gigas, made sure that no one could waltz right into Diamond Palace, kill all the guards, and then cause global extinction with the Gigas Crystals. Instead, they made holograms of the two most powerful of the Gigas Crystals in the middle of the Palace for display reasons only and guarded the real gems in another plane of existence.

Muugara had started to reach for one of the Gigas Crystals, but Mortigon smacked the dragon sharply with the blunt side of his weapon.

"No, you fool. Only one such as me can touch these powerful gems." Mortigon pointed at the large crystal suspended over the pit of Avalar's untamed magic. Muugara looked at the very large crystal, noticed the trapped figure of Changeling Swiftclaw inside, and then understood. He was to steal the gem created from the body of the forsaken tyrant.

One by one, Mortigon removed the Gigas Crystals from their resting places. They were hard to remove from their resting places, and each time he managed to pull a Gigas Crystal out from its pedestal, a loud crackle of magic filled the air. Before long, Mortigon had both of his arms full of six colorful jewels of Avalar's elemental magic. A sinister grin on his face, the serpent walked towards the entrance, casually walking over the dead guards as he did so. A grunt of pain rose from behind Mortigon, making his head turn. He saw Muugara struggling to hold a crystal twice as big as him in midair.

"Man, this thing is heavy. Do we have to steal Changeling too, King of Desolation?" Muugara asked as he fluttered towards Mortigon with the crystal in tow. More than once, the dragon would dip to the ground and have the crystal scrape against the blood-stained floor, annoying Mortigon greatly.

"Of course we have to steal Changeling as well, you weak excuse for a dragon. Without her, the plan falls straight to the floor. If the weight of one little gem bothers you so much, I can order one of the horde members to take it off your hands, Weakling. We need to leave by tonight with all the gems in tow!" Mortigon barked at Muugara. His head turned to look at the desert outside, where monsters loyal to Mortigon waited for their master just a few yards away.

"After all, we have a party to go to."  
**  
**And with those words, the two intruders left the tourist trap known as Diamond Palace and headed towards their next destination.

* * *

It was morning in the Rainforests of Mist. Much like Diamond Palace, the rainforests had changed over the years. However, unlike the commercialization of the Gigas Crystals' resting place, the Rainforests of Mist stayed rather intact save for a giant palace that rose out from the treetops near the Mist Ruins. After Ripto had achieved the status he always desired, he moved his Chateau from the Riptocian homelands to a tropical paradise in which few people frequented. His wife Snowflake, despite being a creature that enjoyed cold more than hot weather, agreed with the choice of location for their home. Being in the rainforest in which she discovered that she was a Gigas Crystal Holder added a level of nostalgia for the dragon, and it also made Grunge, a serpentine monster made of leaves that was also the Green Gigas Guardian, happy to finally have some neighbors. 

Ripto's son looked at the horizon in boredom, barely noticing any of the parrots or birds of paradise that crossed his line of sight. The sixteen-year-old Riptoc drummed his claws against the marble railing that surrounded the ornate balcony that happened to be on the third floor of Chateau Ripto. The teenager stifled a yawn as he waited for his dad to teach him his daily lesson of magic.

"Dad better get here soon. He always yells at me when _I'm_ late for lessons, and yet he's twenty minutes late. If I hear 'Torin, you're slacking off' _one more time_, I'll..." Torin cut off his complaint before anyone overheard. He respected his father in front of him, but if any of the servants were to hear him speak an ill word towards Ripto, he would never hear the end of it.

The young Riptoc was an interesting looking character indeed. Torin was often said to resemble a younger version of his father by some of the servants in Chateau Ripto, but he knew that was a blatant lie. Sure, he inherited most of his dad's looks and often wore the same clothes as him, but Ripto wasn't half-dragon. His dad forced him to wear clothes that resembled his wizard ensemble during their magic lessons, but the two wings with blue webbing made wearing the purple cloak cumbersome and irritating. And the wing-like ears and dragon tail that he inherited from his mom made him look almost silly in the wizard's clothing, especially when his sister Glacier was around to comment.

"Torin!" At the sound of his name, the Riptgon jumped. He knew that voice anywhere, and from the tone of his voice, he didn't sound happy. When Torin turned his head to look at the person shouting at him from the balcony, sure enough, his father Ripto was standing there. And he didn't look happy at all.

"Hello, Father. Has it been a pleasant morning for you?" Torin replied courteously. Ripto's children were expected to answer him in the most polite way possible; it's been Ripto's way of raising them ever since birth. Ripto rolled his eyes at his son's reply.

"No, it hasn't been a pleasant morning for me, young man!" Ripto yelled. The red power crystal on his scepter started to glow, and Torin hoped that his father was keeping his temper intact. The last time they got into a fight, both of them had to be sent into the hospital wing to be treated for second degree burns, where they got lectured by Snowflake for about two hours about proper magic safety.

Ripto seemed to recall this, as he took a few seconds to calm his temper down. Twenty years ago, he would've kept on ranting. "Torin, what is this?" The father Riptoc asked calmly. At the word "this", Ripto held out a daisy pinched between his thumb and index finger. Torin eyed both his father and the flower and replied in the most sincere way possible.

"...A flower?"

"Yes, I know it's a flower, but why was it growing in your room?" Ripto demanded. Torin said nothing, but inwardly he flinched at his father's tone of voice. When he adopted that tone, it was his way of saying 'I'm not mad, I'm just _disappointed_ in you'.

"I was practicing my magic. Just like you told me to do, Father. I made some plants grow, I repaired some cracks in the wall, and I even healed the broken foot of our chef! You know how much he was suffering, and now he's all better!" Torin answered. He was proud of his efforts; mending the bones of someone in pain was a big accomplishment for someone of his level of training.

But Ripto wasn't proud at all. "Torin, when I told you to practice your magic, I meant for you to practice the magic that I practice! Growing flowers and healing the sick is your mother's job, because she happens to be-"

"The Green Gigas Crystal Holder." Torin finished his father's sentence for him. He heard this conversation many times before. The young Riptoc hybrid then adopted a whiny tone to his voice in an attempt to explain his reasons. "But I don't want to burn anybody to a crisp! I want to help people, like Mother does!"

Ripto sighed and started rubbing his forehead with his right hand. This certainly wasn't starting out as the best of days. "That's your sister's job. Every male in my family was an evil, malicious overlord that commanded black magic. Otpir ruled over Avalar in that fashion, and now I do. How do you think the populace will react when they see the new ruler make daisies sprout out of the ground and make boo-boos go away?"

"Glacier can be the evil ruler! She likes to light things on fire!" Torin replied in a voice that was close to shouting, bringing up his younger sibling Glacier. Glacier mostly resembled her mom, but her wings were barely strong enough to glide, she had a single horn growing out of her head, and she had orange webbing instead of blue. The dragon with cream colored scales had adopted a love for the power of fire early on. In fact, one of her favorite activities was setting Crush's club on fire so that the blue Riptoc smashed everything within a few yards to bits while trying to put the flames out.

A ghost of a smile lingered on Ripto's lips, as he was very proud for having at least one of his kids like him, for about a few seconds before he replied to Torin. "But she's a girl, and she resembles a dragon more than you. The dragons help, the Riptocs kill. It's all in the unspoken rule of nature. We can't fight the unspoken rule of nature, so we go along with them. "

"Yes, and it's also _the unspoken rule of nature_ for Rhynocs to be cruel and mindless killers that obey the rules of any potential evil ruler. I'm sure Airazor and his family can go into great detail about how much they follow _the unspoken rule of nature_. Since, you know, all that helping people and studying benign magic is all just a cover up..." Torin snidely commented.

"Yes, I'm sure Wart can go on for hours about how he isn't like the other rhynocs." Ripto said. Despite the fact that his years of being a Lab Pet for Changeling were behind him, Ripto still used Airazor's old nickname instead of his real name. He called it a force of habit; everyone else just called it rude.

"Just like I'm not like the other males in this family! When are you going to understand that I DON'T want to hurt anybody with my magic?" Torin shouted. He didn't mean to, but the teenaged Riptgon set off his father's infamous temper.

"Oh, I think I understand. I understand clearly." Ripto hissed. He jabbed his finger into Torin's chest. "You're a snively little bleeding heart who can't even bother to make his old man proud!"

Torin slapped his father's hand away. His hands clenched into fists, ready to strike. "If making people whimper at my heels will make you proud of what I am, I don't think I belong in this family!"

"If you weren't my son, so help me, I'd push you off this balcony!"

"I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR SON!"

"THAT'S IT, I'M-"

"ENOUGH!"

The two of them both froze in mid-sentence when they heard another voice pierce the air. Torin was about ready to punch his dad right in the stomach, and Ripto's scepter was glowing a very dangerous shade of red. Snowflake Laterose stepped out onto the balcony with Glacier gaily skipping at her heels, and she didn't seem all that happy about the scene in front of her. Her brow wrinkled in distaste.

"Can't you two get through a single magic lesson without trying to blow each other to kingdom come?" The dragon said in exasperation. Time had been very kind to her, as with the exception of the finer jewelry wrapped around her wrists and neck and the elaborate silken blue dress that covered her entire figure save for her back to allow movement of her giant wings, she looked the same as she did when she defeated Changeling with the White Gigas Crystal. She placed her hands on her hips.

"Do you want me to start teaching Torin how to use magic, honey? I'm sure it'll spare both of you the heart attacks." Snowflake replied with a roll of her eyes.

"That's the last thing we need. The very reason I'm about ready to strangle the boy is because he's learning your magic instead of mine." Ripto retorted. As he said those words, Glacier scampered over to where her brother was sitting and started to tease him.

"Oooooh...Daddy wanted to strangle you, Torin!" Glacier snickered. Her brother said nothing, but he kept flexing his hands as if resisting the urge to strangle his draconic sister himself.

"It shouldn't matter whether or not Torin wants to learn magic pertaining to healing or nature. I don't even bat an eyelash when I see Glacier create fire with a flick of her wrist. I'm still proud with her even though she knows magic that I don't practice, and you should be proud of Torin for wanting to do something different with his life than what you did." Snowflake explained, her expression softening.

"I know, I know. And yet, it just doesn't _seem_ right to have my son be the healer and my daughter to be the one casting fires and leading armies to war. You understand me when I'm saying this, right?" Ripto said with a sigh. He looked at his son Torin, who looked like the entire world was ready to collapse on his shoulders. "Am I being a bad father?"

"I understand you, and no, you're not being a bad father. Sometimes things don't happen the way you planned them to be, and sometimes, we have to learn to accept them. 'When the bridge in front of you collapses, you have to build another way', as my mother used to quote to me." Snowflake comforted Ripto softly. As the two adults walked back into the giant mansion, the white dragon reminded her husband of what lay ahead of them in the near future with just one sentence.

"Besides, those decorations aren't going to hang themselves!"

* * *

Later that night, all of Chateau Ripto was engulfed in a giant party. Families from all over the realms came to celebrate the day that Changeling was defeated and the Gigas Crystals were returned to their rightful spots in Diamond Palace. Inside a one-story ballroom separate from the rest of the mansion, partygoers were entertained with music, dancing, food, and various other entertainments. Everyone invited to the party was happy, what with the arrangements Ripto's family made in order to celebrate this joyous occasion. 

Everyone, that is, except for Airazor. The Rhygon normally was the happiest one during this holiday, but today, he was fidgety and almost threatened by some unseen force. The scientist started to pace in front of the snack bar, his lab coat falling casually to each step. His show of behavior began to trouble his wife, as she soon laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Honestly, dear. You're working yourself too hard over this. I don't think Ripto wants to see you zonked out before any of the real partying begins!" Eledor cooed as she handed Airazor a cup of fruit punch. The female Rhynoc would be normally dressed in the clothes suited for the priestesses of Aurora, but for this occasion, she was wearing a rather fetching black satin gown. She watched as her Rhygon husband downed the glass down without even tasting a single drop.

"I know, I know." He answered as he crushed the plastic cup in his hands. "But it just bugs me. All the other days, that work force hasn't received anything bigger than a cockroach during their shift. And then suddenly, last night, something breaks into Diamond Palace, kills every last one of them, and then makes off with the Gigas Crystals. Some of the custodians fainted when they stepped into the building and saw the mess. And the night before the anniversary. It's uncanny." Airazor replied, almost whimpered, to his wife. He was braver than he was when he worked with Changeling, but the thought of someone going into Diamond Palace and then wiping everyone out was too scary to picture.

"Dear, do you remember a few years ago when some crazed psycho entered Diamond Palace, shot all the guards with a handgun, and then stole two of the Gigas Crystals with a magic-absorbing glove? Two days later, Spyro finds the kid paralyzed by the radiation of the Gigas Crystals and then returns the stolen gems back. You're acting as if this hasn't happened before. Those rhynoc guards shouldn't have died, but the incident is far from uncanny." Eledor comforted. As she said those words, she felt a hand tap her shoulder. When she turned, she saw her daughter standing behind her.

"Would Nazza and Mell notice if I were to turn Calub into a pigeon, mum?" Karydor asked innocently enough. She resembled a miniature version of her mother, except she was dressed in a casual pink outfit designed to fit around her small draconic wings she inherited from her father. An orange satchel hung at her side. The young rhynoc was holding a silver wand with a crescent moon shape at the end of it in her right hand, and she looked very eager to use it.

Airazor glanced at her and pretended to be very shocked at her notion. "Turn dear little Calub into a pigeon? Why on Avalar would you want to do that?" He grinned, looked over at the Riptoc/wolf hybrid Karydor was talking about, and then added. "I think a toad would be more suitable for him, wouldn't it?"

Karydor let her eyesight fall on the person she was talking about and, like her father, grinned. Calub was the son of Nazza, the blue wolf that had helped three heroes enter the Mist Ruins, and Mell, a brown Riptoc female who once worked for Ripto's army. His bloodline showed in his appearance, as from the waist up he was just a normal ten-year-old brown Riptoc with yellow hair and from the waist down he had furry wolf features like paws and a fluffy tail. He was wearing torn clothes even at the party, as he thought that wearing clean clothes would ruin his devilish good looks. Calub was twirling his slingshot in his right hand smugly, reveling in the complaints from the guests who found the stink bomb he launched in the strawberry Jell-O.

"On second thought, being a toad would be too good for Calub." Airazor replied jokingly. He and Karydor both watched as Calub's older sister Harmony, a sixteen-year-old blue Riptoc/Wolf hybrid who was wolf from the waist up and riptoc from the waist down, chased her bother with a stink bomb stuck in her hair. The two Rhygons nearly collapsed into a fit of giggles when Calub ran through the crowd with Harmony at his heels, shouting insults like "OTTER!" and "SKUNK!" at his sister as he did so.

"Heh, those two can't go anywhere without causing a scene. I'm sure glad Pyran isn't like that." Airazor turned his head and immediately said a word of greeting to Spyro the Dragon. The dragon certainly looked heroic, from his glimmering purple scales that were like polished armor to the six horns that now grew from his head. The dragon took a cup full of punch and watched as Mell and Nazza sternly chastised their children.

"But then again, if Pyran had a bigger sister, all of Avalar would be set aflame." Spyro added. He wrapped an arm around his wife Elora's waist as he then replied with a grin, "It's a good thing me and Elora didn't decide to have another one like him; Pyran's a handful as it is."

Airazor let his eyes travel to where Pyran, Spyro and Elora's son, was occupying. By now, Karydor had scampered from her father and mother and was busy talking to the fourteen-year-old dragon/faun hybrid about how she was almost ready to turn Calub into a toad. Pyran resembled both his mother and his father, since he stood on two legs that were covered in purple faun's fur, but was covered in purple scales from the waist up just like his father. He had a set of straight green horns growing from his skull, but unlike Spyro, he also had a pair of furry faun's horns and a brown ridge made out of fur going down his back.

"He's a nice enough boy," Spyro replied with sigh. He noticed Torin walk by him and Pyran immediately shouted something that couldn't be heard, but from the look on Torin's face when he heard it, it wasn't a compliment at all.

"But I wish he would get his head out of the clouds and realize that being the son of a great hero doesn't mean that he can treat everyone else like dirt. Especially Torin and Glacier. Dragon Elders above, those two probably get about five hours of badmouthing from my son every week just because they're the offspring of one of my past enemies." Spyro said sadly, hanging his head in shame. Airazor, being an old friend, patted Spyro on the back.

"Hey, don't feel bad, Spyro!" The dragon/rhynoc hybrid replied jokingly. As a harmful joke, he then made humor out of the situation.

"The day Pyran starts behaving like someone his age is the day that the roof crashes over our heads!"

It did. As soon as Airazor said those words, there was a great explosion from over their heads. All the partygoers immediately stopped what they were doing as pieces of roof fell to the ground. Some of the invitees, like Pyran and Karydor, ducked underneath the tables and shielded their eyes from the shower of wood and plaster. Eledor held out her wand and spoke a spell, summoning Air Magic to her command. There was a flash of blue lingered in the air for a split second, and all the dust cleared harmlessly away, permitting eyesight.

"Well, well, well. It looks like someone forgot to invite me to the party." A sinister voice replied from the giant hole in the roof.

**"Laigon?"** The word came from many mouths, but Airazor's was the loudest. Sure enough, the maddened yellow and brown sea serpent once known as Laigon was perched on one of the rafters, staring down at the partiers below. The moon above hauntingly illuminated him, making him seem like a nightmare that had risen from the depths of Hell.

"No, not Laigon. I'm afraid that Laigon is dead. Only Mortigon remains." The serpent replied again, as casually as he did when he slaughtered the rhynocs in Diamond Palace. Mortigon drew his weapon and revealed his double-bladed scimitar in the silver light of the moon. A collective gasp rose in the air.

Embedded in the blades was the six Gigas Crystals. On one side of the two-bladed scimitar, the Green and Red Gigas Crystals were embedded. The other side contained the rest. The resulting weapon was one that was at the peak of both physical and mental power.

"Like my battle trophy? All I had to do is kill a few rhynocs and they were mine. It's funny how weakly guarded Avalar's treasures happen to be. It's as if you wanted me to steal them." Mortigon hissed.

"The dead rhynocs from the Diamond Palace. I knew I recognized their mode of death. They were impaled and beheaded by scimitar blades!" Airazor recalled. Raw fury ran through the scientist's veins as he glared up at Mortigon. "Twenty years and you've haven't changed a bit!"

"Correction, Wart. I have changed." Mortigon said, using Airazor's old nickname to add insult to injury. Just as he said those words, a rock hit the woodworking near his feet. The sea serpent looked down at the Riptocian hybrid Calub, who was trying futilely to aim another rock at Mortigon's head. This action seemed to amuse the twisted sea serpent, as he aimed his double-bladed scimitar at Calub and sent a fireball flying in his direction. Mortigon chuckled when he saw Nazza's son dive out of the way.

"Unlike the rest of you and your miserable little hybrid children, I've grown smarter, braver, and stronger over the years. Even the mighty Spyro the dragon can't stop me now."

"Wanna bet, Laigon?" Spyro snarled. Ignoring Elora's shouts to keep away from him, Spyro launched himself into the air and headed straight for Mortigon with his horns outstretched. The yellow sea serpent didn't even move to use his weapon on Spyro. Instead, he snapped his fingers and Spyro was knocked out of the sky by a swift kick from Muugara, who had descended from his perch on the roof. Spyro fell to the floor with a thud, but luckily, the dragon was only shaken by the sudden attack. He rose to attack once more, but immediately hit a force field surrounding both the yellow serpent and the strange new dragon.

"I like you to meet Muugara, my subordinate and second-in-commander." Mortigon hissed. He signaled with his hand, and Muugara landed to the carpeted floor to show off his prowess over Spyro. "Unlike Wart, Muugara respects the person he works for, he's strong in every aspect of battle, and can fly a lot better than the average dragon."

Spyro rose to make a remark, but Airazor butted in. "Ah, so I see that you need to adopt a lackey as insane and as bloodthirsty as you are in order to feel more special. Well, if you're so sure that Muugara is better than me, why do you prove it instead of kicking poor Spyro down?"

"This is the little wimp that bested you in battle, King of Desolation?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I was the wimp that bested him in battle." Airazor shouted. With an almost savage grin, he added. "I drove a sword through his stomach and dug his grave for him."

"As you can see Wart, I learn from the mistakes made from the past. Where Changeling and Laigon have failed in the past, I triumph. While you were busy fooling around with your science and with those weak little maggots you call friends, I was able to acquire a kingdom to call my own. Muugara is an improvement on everything you were in Changeling's army."

Mortigon flashed Airazor a set of teeth that was stained with dried blood. "In fact, it would be nice to see him beat you within one inch of death." He added, and Muugara took it as an invitation. With a bow, the dragon replied in the most sincere voice,

"As you wish, King of Desolation."

Muugara immediately sprang into action. His leathery wings propelled him straight at Airazor. The two collided, claws and limbs locked. Eledor and Karydor both cried out for their hero as the sinister lackey knocked Airazor to the ground with a swift movement of his tail. Despite it being a very powerful blow, Airazor was up and on his feet within a few seconds.

"Only a cheat attacks a man when he is unprepared!" Airazor shouted. Muugara was about to kick his face, but the Rhygon reacted. A wordless yell tearing from his mouth, the scientist let his instincts control him. Muugara gave a yelp as he was yanked from the air and onto the red carpet. The two dragons wrestled amid a crowd of bewildered partygoers.

"Die traitor!" Muugara yelled. The mismatched dragon tore a chunk of the carpet and threw it into Airazor's right eye. The fuzz blinded the Rhygon temporarily and made him loosen his hold on his opponent. Muugara gave a squeal of laughter, landed on his back, and kicked Airazor's stomach with both his legs. Airazor was sent flying into the table behind him.

**_CRASH!_**

The wooden table broke underneath the sudden weight, and Airazor crumbled into a heap amid shattered china, bent silverware, and smashed desserts. A groan rose from the pieces of polished wood, but no Rhygon rose from the pile. Practically everyone held their breaths as they watched for signs of life. Mortigon smiled when his enemy didn't get up.

Muugara was the winner.

"AIRAZOR!" Eledor had to be held back by Snowflake and Mell, as any interference with the fight would probably cause even more destruction.

Without warning, Muugara jumped onto the stunned body of Airazor and picked him up with his gloved hand. He hovered to where the floor was lit by the moonlight coming from the hole in the roof, gave a nod to Mortigon, and then used the weapon he so dearly wanted to try on the deceased guards in Diamond Palace. Claws sprouted out of the metallic glove's fingers and electricity sparkled in the air. The Rhygon gave out an almost unreal scream of pain as Mortigon's lackey jabbed the glove's claws into Airazor's ribcage and shot several thousand volts of electricity into his body.

_**CRACKLE!**_

The sickingly sweet smell of burnt flesh hung in the air. Airazor collapsed forward in a senseless heap with blood leaking out of his third degree burn wound. Eledor tore herself from Snowflake and Mell's grips and ran to her husband. She wrapped her arms around him and glared up at Muugara, who seemed quite pleased with his accomplishments.

"You monster! What do you have to prove?"

"What does My Liege have to prove?" Muugara answered for his master. "Why, everything, of course. I've just proven myself better than one of the Holders of the Gigas Crystals. And if I can beat a Gigas Holder, then the King of Desolation can surely beat them all." Muugara declared as-a-matter-of-factly as he sheathed his claws back into his metallic glove and licked the blood off his fingers.

"He won't beat us!" Spyro shouted. The circle widened as the frightened audience backed away from Mortigon and let the heroes step into the ring. Smoke rose from Spyro's nostrils as he stepped forward, Elora following with a faun-style rapier in her hand. Nazza and Mell followed, both of them armed to the teeth with their weapons of choice. Soon, Snowflake and Ripto joined to fight against Mortigon. The heroes surrounded both Eledor and her fallen husband, and they looked ready to drag Mortigon down to the gates of Hell.

As the heroes stood before the monster, their children peeked over at them from the sidelines. Pyran, ever the adventure-seeker, had to be restrained by Harmony and Torin in order to keep him from joining his parents in the battle. Glacier and Calub both cheered words of encouragement to their parents while Karydor prayed to Aurora above for them to succeed.

"Excellent. So the heroes honestly believe that they can honor Wart's failure by defeating me." Mortigon hissed. He snapped his fingers again, and delighted in the shiver that ran through everyone's backs when they heard a wolf howl from the distance.

"I think you're mistaking me for Laigon again." Suddenly, a giant white wolf twice the height of Spyro the Dragon manifested in the ring standing just a few inches away from the rest of the heroes. The yellow eyes, yeti-like build, and ever-familiar howl could only mean one thing.

"Squall, finish these fools off." Mortigon commanded the Silver Gigas Guardian with a wave of his hand. The wolf, regarding Spyro and the rest with narrowed eyes, did a doggy-like bow to his new master.

"Yes, Silver Gigas Holder." The wolf answered in a voice that sounded like a growl. Immediately, the canine let another howl tear from his throat. Spyro, Ripto, and Nazza stepped forward to attack, but suddenly, the entire area around them was surrounded by a giant whirlwind. Before any of them had a chance to react, Mortigon jumped from his perch on the rafters, brought his double-bladed scimitar down, and embedded it into the floor.

**_FWOOSH! _**

A column of fire, much like the one that appeared in Winter Tundra one night twenty years ago, suddenly rose from the ground to the heavens and engulfed Mortigon, all the heroes that stood to face him, Squall, and Muugara.

Everyone in the audience screamed at the sight of the maelstrom, but no one was as loud as Harmony, Calub, Pyran, Torin, Glacier, and Karydor all shouting for their parents.

When the whirlwind of fire cleared, everyone that Squall had herded in the middle of the room had vanished. There was no sign of Mortigon, Muugara, or any of the people they happened to take captive of. Shocked conversation rose into the air, but it did nothing to cover up the unmistakable sound of six children crying.

Torin, Glacier, Harmony, Calub, Pyran, and Karydor all looked at the hole in the roof Mortigon created, tears staining all of their faces. As they did so, the full moon lit the spot on the floor in which all of them huddled next to each other for support. In that flicker of understanding, the six teenagers, all of them friends with one another in some shape or form, understood what needed to be done.

Mortigon had the crystals _and _their parents.

If he was going to be stopped, they were the ones to stop him.

**

* * *

End of Chapter 1 **

**Spyro is walking on his hind legs because, at least as it was presented in all the Spyro games, the dragons learn to walk on their hind legs when they become of age. **

I meant to leave some questions left unanswered in this chapter. Everything will get solved as the story rolls along. Yeah. I'm like that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TTE!


	2. Shifting Sands

Chapter 2-Shifting Sands  
Rating: High PG for blood and gore.  
Author's Notes: Da Dark One doesn't scare me. As for this chapter, well, it took a much shorter time to write than the first chapter because, unlike the first chapter, the computer didn't decide to crash and take all the data with it.

Both Scorch the desert (From Ripto's Rage) and Scorch the wyvern (From Year of the Dragon) are mentioned in this chapter. Why Insomniac reused the name of a world on a monster is beyond me, but try not to mix them up.

* * *

It wasn't very easy, but before long, the children of the captured families managed to sneak out of the party without being noticed. The entire crowd of partygoers still focused their attention on either the big gaping hole in the middle of the ceiling or to the two remaining organizers for the party, Crush and Gulp. As the two dinosaurian Riptocs tried to explain to around three hundred representatives of several different species that Spyro and Ripto were not going to come back anytime soon, the offspring of the captives snuck past them and into the night. 

The six children of the captured families were crouched in the shrubbery near Chateau Ripto. As Torin and Glacier watched for the telltale signs of guards, Pyran broke the silence with a rather rude question.

"Why are we sticking around here for, Shorty Junior? We should be going after the scumbag that took our parents!" Pyran asked Torin, using the one nickname the little Riptgon hated. The dragon/faun hybrid looked rather silly with his faun-like ears flattened against his purple head in irritation, but nevertheless, when the son of a hero asked a question, he demanded an answer.

"We're going to get some supplies, Pyran." Harmony said sternly, trying to quench the argument before it started. At those words, Pyran threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.

"What do we need supplies for? My dad certainly never took any supplies with him while he was kicking the butts of people like Gnasty Gnorc and Red! What makes us so special?" He demanded.

"Gnasty Gnorc and Red never held the parents of Spyro hostage. They never took the main power source of Avalar and fled to who-knows-where. They never slaughtered a palace full of guards just to get what they desired. We're not dealing with anybody like Gnasty Gnorc, Red, or even Ripto and the Sorceress. We're dealing with a sick and twisted fiend that has no inkling of sanity at all. Mortigon doesn't want the world or immortality; he wants revenge. He's going to kill our parents, and if we don't stop him, we'll all be orphans." Torin's voice was rather patient. Tears brimmed in his green eyes, but the look he gave Pyran was enough to cut off any future protests from him. Only a moment of silence passed by as Pyran and Torin locked eyes with one another, but it seemed like an eternity before Pyran sighed in defeat.

"Fine, fine, fine. Let's waste our time and get supplies. It's not like a few more minutes of lingering at Chateau Ripto is going to cost our parents' lives..."

One by one, they crept through the shadows and entered Ripto and Snowflake's mansion. Since most of the guards were either at the party or taking a nap, Calub took the time to put his feelings into words as he walked down the hallways with Torin leading the way.

"Lupine Gods above, this is frustrating." Calub muttered to himself loud enough for the others to hear. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and sulked as he walked next to his friends and sister. When nothing but the sounds of six pairs of feet walking on marble greeted his ears, he then added, "The one night I can pull the ultimate pranks and not get punished, Mom and Dad manage to get themselves captured by some bloodthirsty serpent."

"Not get punished, eh?" Harmony replied. She playfully punched Calub's shoulder as she walked beside him. Before Calub could react, she wrapped her arm around his neck and began to give him a noogie.

"Hey, no fair! I wasn't looking!" The younger sibling shouted as he struggled to free himself from Harmony's grip. Their plan of secrecy and keeping their voices down shatter, Calub began to chase Harmony in circles around the other four in their group, much to the annoyance of Pyran. The two Woltocs' laughter reverberated through the hallways so loudly that it sounded like there was five Harmonys and five Calubs causing a commotion. Pyran made an irritated growl, but when he opened his mouth to protest, Karydor had wrapped her hand around his snout.

"Honestly, Pyran. Your father had a little fun during his adventures. Lighten up." She replied lightheartedly, speaking for the first time since her parents got captured. She exchanged glances with Pyran, noted his surprised expression, and then released her grip so as to hear whatever the son of Spyro had to say.

"Lighten up? Lighten up? Our parents are in the captivity of some murdering psycho and his insane flying lackey, and you're telling me to lighten up. You do realize that you're making no sense just now. You realize that, don't you? What if the two Wolf Weirdoes decide to goof around while we're sneaking around in Mortigon's Lair? The guards would kill us faster than you can say 'I have no idea how serious this quest is'!" Pyran yelled.

He didn't realize that he was shouting until nothing but the sounds of six children walking over smooth marbled tile and the echoes of his own voice greeted his ears. Everyone had slowed down, and now they were all staring at him.

"Wolf weirdoes." Harmony repeated. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Pyran a glare that chilled him to the bone.

"Look, just because someone is trying to have a little fun on this mission doesn't give you the right to criticize and complain, Mr. Hot Shot. We're going to spend the next few months of our lives in some unfamiliar territory, so it's best to grin and smile every chance we get until we have to keep our mouths shut in fear that something with huge fangs is going to rip us apart! Don't like it, Faun Freak? Then you can go on this adventure by yourself without any help or provisions!"

She judged his reaction and when she saw that the dragon youth was close to tears she eased her anger. "Pyran, I know that you miss your parents terribly, but you don't have to take it out on us. How are we going to fight Mortigon if we're wasting our time fighting each other?"

"We'll be too tired to fight him because we're going at each other's throats, that's why." Glacier commented. She glanced at her brother Torin and then at Pyran. She smiled, and as if she was predicting all the quarrels that were to happen in the future, added, "But that doesn't mean we have to be all 'lets-hold-hands-and-sing-songs-around-the-campfire' all the time."

"Yeah, I certainly can't handle being nice to this jerk here for a month or so!" Torin said jokingly as he punched Pyran in the arm. The tension eased amongst all the children, and by the time they reached the storage room, they were laughing and giggling as if today was the first day of summer.

Glacier pushed open the door to reveal a rather cramped room filled to the brim with adventuring gear. She pulled the string that lit up the only source of light in the room; a single light bulb suspended by a wire hanging from the ceiling. Immediately, the six children ran to different areas of the room and admired all the equipment that would make anybody successful in a long journey. Pyran made a cry of joy when he saw all the swords and shields stacked in one corner, all of them sharp and polished. Just as he reached for a practically impressive sword, he was hit in the head by a knapsack.

"Hey, what the he-"

"You don't expect us to carry our provisions in our hands, do you?" Karydor replied. She placed her hands on her hips and mocked a stern expression as her five friends examined their new forms of clothing in various different ways. "There's six of us, so carrying food, water, first aid, and sleeping bags is going to be easy. I say we split up our provisions so that each of us carries one thing. How's that?"

Quickly, Calub's hand shot up in the air.

"Ooh! Let me carry the food!"

"You're not carrying the food, squirrel cheeks." Glacier argued. "You'd eat all of it before we even got out of the mansion!" The daughter of Snowflake and Ripto then stuck her tongue out at Calub for good measure as she filled her backpack with easily compressed sleeping bags and soft pillows.

"I won't eat any of the food!" Calub promised. He held up one of the cans he stuffed in his backpack for her to see. "Besides, they're all canned. I'd break my teeth trying to eat this stuff without a can opener."

"Not all of them are canned, Cal. I see you stuffing bags of chips and trail mix in there..." Harmony said as she regarded her brother. She was stuffing canteens of water and pots to boil it in inside her knapsack. They didn't need to bring any lighters or flints, as Glacier and Pyran were gifted with the draconic talent of breathing fire. All the better for them, as they all remembered when Glacier was fooling around with a lighter and she ended up setting Calub's tail on fire. That was one of the few moments in her life in which Harmony dearly wished that she had a camera at hand.

"Pyran, how in Aurora's name are you going to carry all those weapons?" Karydor asked. She had already finished packing her provisions of maps and magic books when she noticed Pyran. The hybrid had tossed his backpack off to the side and was instead donning all the armor and weapons he was planning on taking with him. With six knives, four swords, two slingshots, one spear, a quiver of arrows, a suit of chain mail, and two shields on each arm, Pyran looked like he was a walking pile of stainless steel. He skittered uneasily against the weight, but he wore a grin on his face nonetheless.

"Boy, if Dad ever saw me in this armor, his heart would burst with pride! I'm ready to fight that scum-sucking Mortigon and his dragon pet! I'll fight him to the ends of the universe! I'll fight him-" Pyran was cut off when he collapsed underneath the weight of all his provisions and went crashing to the floor.

"-Until you trip over your own armor. Really, if anything, your father would be roaring in laughter if he saw you in that getup." Torin snidely commented as he stuffed his backpack full of first aid tools. He also packed a scepter that, while modeled after his father's trademark weapon, it contained a jewel that was both red and green.

"At least I know how to fight!" Pyran retorted. He stiffly patted one of the weapons hanging from his body as he said those words, but even that small gesture made him lose his balance and he crashed on the floor again.

"How are you going to fight with four swords at the same time? I suppose you can sprout extra arms as well!" Torin snidely remarked. "And while you're at it, can you-"

Torin was cut off when someone pushed the door open and entered the storage room. All the children immediately stopped what they were doing and glanced up at the person that entered in fright.

_'Great,'_ most of them thought in their heads_. 'Now they know that we plan on running away. We're probably going to sent to the guest rooms to be babysat by Crush and Gulp, and we are never going to see our parents again...' _

"I knew I'd catch you six in the storage room. I'm glad you didn't decide to run after Mortigon without any preparations first, or else it wouldn't be a pretty picture." Blink the mole jokingly replied to break the silence that had descended on them when he entered. Time had been relatively kind to him, and for the most part, he still resembled the same adventurous mole that Spyro had met during his adventures against Red. However, instead of wearing all the gadgets that his uncle had built for him to try out, Blink was now wearing a rather modest lab coat that marked his new status that named him The Professor in memory of his dead uncle.

"Professor Blink, sir? Are you going to snitch on us?" Glacier shakingly asked. As she said this, Blink shut the door behind him and placed his hands on his hips. He pretended to be extremely disappointed in all six of them by mocking a stern glare.

"Why shouldn't I? Six children like you are traveling off into the big unknown to save your parents! You could be killed!" Blink shouted. The six children all lowered their heads in shame; they all knew that that tone of voice meant a week of being grounded. Quickly their moods changed when Blink later added, "But I might decide to let a few children slip by _if _they bother to bring with them a decent navigator and a decent mode of transportation."

At those words, Blink pulled out a strange device that resembled a crossbreed between a handheld computer and a magnifying glass. The lens displayed a very detailed map of the world around them, and when Blink pressed a few buttons, six dots, all in different colors, appeared on the screen. The mole puffed out his chest dramatically and then handed the very familiar device to Glacier.

"Twenty years ago, my uncle handed your mother a Gigas Crystal Tracker. Now, I must do the same for you, Glacier. The device you hold in your hands is a GCT, much like the one that was destroyed in the Mystic Mountains. With a few exceptions, of course." Blink explained. He pointed to the screen and noted the immense detail the device went into to perfectly plot the distance between them and the six Gigas Crystals. If they were to zoom in, the GCT showed them every secret path in the jungle that surrounded Chateau Ripto.

"Unlike the device my uncle, bless his soul, designed, this one has detailed maps and exact distances with only a margin of error so small that it's off, if anything, by only a single centimeter. If you notice, Mortigon and your parents are very far away, thanks to that horrible lizard's power of teleportation. Almost a month away if you were to walk on foot." Blink said. Since their plan _was_ to indeed walk on foot, the six hybrid children all talked among themselves as to how foolish they were not to get some help.

"However, I think I have someone that will take you to where Mortigon is in less than a day." Blink added. He motioned for them to follow, but they had to wait for Pyran to remove most of the stuff that was hanging on his body before they could leave the storage room. When they were finished, Pyran was carrying the GCT in his backpack alongside more cans full of food, and around his waist hung a knife and a sword.

Blink led them to the backyard of Chateau Ripto, which was really more of a place for Ripto to build various luxuries like bushes shaped to look like him, statues of himself, and tennis courts. Sitting on one of the tennis courts was a hot air balloon and a pile of rocks. Just as Torin was going to ask how a hot air balloon was going to catch up to their parents, the pile of rocks next to the balloon shifted to reveal a dragon head. The dragon let out a large yawn and shifted its body to reveal a pair of transparent yellow wings.

"Marco the balloonist let me borrow his hot air balloon, and Fissure is going to be the main thrust." Blink explained as the Yellow Gigas Guardian turned his head to regard his six passengers and began to prepare himself for flight. "And since Scorch is the only Gigas Holder not to be captured by that striped fiend, Fissure is available to take you there."

"Come to think of it, our parents aren't Gigas Holders..." Calub began to say. Suddenly, he pointed at Fissure in anger and yelled, "If Scorch was at the party, he would've got captured instead of our parents!"

"And just how much good would that do, little one?" Fissure answered in a voice that sounded like the rumbles of a distant earthquake. Since Fissure was a snake dragon and had only a pair of wings for limbs, he gently poked Calub with the tip of his wing as he said so. "If Scorch was captured, you'd still end up going with your friends. If Pyran, Torin, Karydor, and Glacier went on any sort of a quest, you'd follow them and be there to help them, whether or not your parents were also captives."

No other conversation was said. Blink the mole helped the six children climb into the sturdy basket underneath the hot air balloon. Most of them started to pale at the thought of being tugged in a small basket through the air at high speeds with only a dragon made of rock and a balloon full of hot air to guide them, but Glacier and Calub were eagerly pressed against one of the sides of the basket and ready for take off.

"Farewell and Godspeed to all of you!" Blink shouted up to them just as Fissure began to beat his wings. Glacier and Calub were the only ones to call back to Blink, as the other four were busy sitting on the bottom of the basket clutching the sides of the basket for dear life.

"Thank you, Professor Blink!" Calub and Glacier shouted just as the basket lurched underneath them and they started to leave the ground. Fissure let out a joyous roar as he spread his wings and took off for their destination. Calub and Glacier were pulled into a sitting position by the high velocity of the ride, but they were still grinning happily at the thrill. However, their passengers were not so joyous about this ride. Torin and Pyran were both so pale that their scales were almost white. Harmony clutched her mouth in hopes that she didn't throw up, and Karydor kept a secure hold on the wall in front of her.

It wasn't long before they got used to the steady beating of Fissure's wings, and soon, the six eager heroes fell asleep, rocked into a state of slumber by the clouds themselves.

* * *

Spyro woke up in a daze. His head pounded, his wings and legs were asleep, and his eyes couldn't focus in the darkness his room was cloaked in. He remembered vaguely that he was at a party last night, so maybe he was just suffering from an overload on party favors. 

"Man, that party was strange. Ripto had a really weird taste in terms of enter-" Spyro cut himself off when he found that he couldn't move his arm. He tried turning his head to look at what was binding his arm to his side when he found that he couldn't move his head either. Suddenly, the memory of Mortigon and Muugara crashing the party came tumbling back into his mind with enough velocity to cause the hero to cry out in wordless agony.

"Hee hee hee. I see the hero is the first to awaken." A voice came from the darkness in front of Spyro's eyes. Immediately, the pitch-black darkness fell away from Spyro's eyes when Muugara removed the blindfold from him. Spyro narrowed his eyes when he saw where he was; he was bound to the wall of some kind of wooden caravan big enough to haul twenty people without loss of legroom. The only source of light was an outdated lantern that was placed on the floor.

And bound to the walls almost in sadistic webs of chains were Ripto, Snowflake, Nazza, Mell, Eledor, Airazor, and Elora. Judging from the way most of them were struggling vainly against their bonds, Spyro was not the first to wake up. The dragon couldn't help but smile as Ripto shouted death threats and insults at no one in particular as he tugged futilely at his chains and fought to free himself from his blindfold. Airazor, on the other hand, was hanging limp in his bonds. If it weren't for the sound of his breath whistling through his nose, Spyro would've guessed that he was dead.

"As you can see, the King of Desolation took the time to make sure none of you can escape. These chains, made from the rare elements mined from the deepest caves, are so strong that not even the flames of the mightiest dragon hero can harm them." Muugara gloated.

"How very kind of him to keep me in mind." Spyro sarcastically replied. He kept his eyes on Muugara as the dragon walked near him and began to undo some of the locks that were suspended above Spyro's reach. With a click, Spyro fell to the floor underneath a heap of chains. The sudden fall winded the hero, but he was otherwise okay. Immediately he sprung to his feet, but his spirit fell when the dragon saw that the bonds were locked in a way so that while he could walk, he had to be lead in front of Muugara like a poodle.

"Aren't you lucky? The King asked me to bring you and only you to take a gander of what is to come. It's all the better, since that weakling I managed to defeat at your party won't be walking anytime soon." Muugara said to Spyro as they walked out of the caravan. Spyro had to squint his eyes in order to block out the harsh light of the desert sun.

"This is Scorch. Why did you take us to Scorch?" Spyro asked as Muugara led him through sand. The hero was surprised when Muugara smacked the back of his head as if the question had insulted his mother.

"Any idiot knows that Scorch contains the portal to my realm. You people of Avalar grow fat and lazy underneath these fertile lands, but the realms I come from know only gloom and desolation!" Muugara hissed. "After all, your kind and happy realms can't certainly breed any monsters such as these!"

He immediately brought Spyro to view what was dragging the caravan, and even the experienced fighter was frightened at the sight. Ten monsters were chained to the caravan. They resembled gnorcs, with the way their faces bore crude snouts with sharp lower fangs poking out of their lips, but the resemblance ended there. Large ears rose from their heads, bat-like and able to swerve so as to detect sounds from all around. Instead of hands, the gnorc-like monsters' fingers extended into a structure of leathery wings, leaving only an opposable thumb. The membrane of the wings was almost see-through, and seemed to coordinate with the color of the creature that owned the pair. Most of the monsters were green with yellow wings, but one of them was a shade of blue and had dark purple wings and another one was pink with dark green wings. They were lithe in form, and their feet had curled claws that were caked with dried blood.

When the bat-like gnorc monsters saw Spyro, some of them leaped at him with their teeth bared. The chains restricted their movement, but Spyro had the pleasure of staring deeply into their beady yellow eyes and their bloodstained fangs. The smell of rotting meat made his stomach churn sickingly.

"What are those things?" The purple dragon asked as Muugara led him away from the caravan and into the camp that Mortigon had set up for his minions.

"Those are what my people call gnorcs." Muugara answered bluntly.

"Those aren't gnorcs! Those look like some mad scientist bred a gnorc with a bat and then added a bunch of raw savagery for good measure!" Spyro argued. Muugara grinned at the dragon's reaction.

"That is what survives in my realm. No peace and happiness in the desolate realms of my birth. The gnorcs you're familiar with wouldn't last two days, so naturally, one has to adapt. The King of Desolation calls them the Desolation Gnorcs, a worthy title for them. I certainly don't want to compare them to the bumbling idiots that you defeat." Muugara explained. The sand scorched Spyro's feet, but he refused to cry out in pain as his captor led him through rows of crude makeshift tents.

And standing at the far right of the camp was Mortigon.

Unlike Changeling, who spent her time in her horde's camp preening in her own tent, Mortigon practiced his newly acquired magic on targets. Muugara lead Spyro to a good spot for him to view him as Mortigon took out his double-bladed scimitar and instructed a lizardman to release the targets. The horde member was much obliged to take the order, and he opened a box and sent a cloud of doves flying into the air. Mortigon grinned savagely and aimed his scimitar at the large flock of birds.

A large flurry of electricity and fire lit up the air. Spyro make a choking sound as every last dove was vaporized by the blast of magic. Nothing landed on the ground save for a few specks of ash.

"I suppose that anyone who wants to save you will have to face that. Total elimination! Nothing can survive the wrath of the King of Desolation!" Muugara cackled eagerly, much to the delight of his master Mortigon. The draconic hero felt his blood turn to ice when he pictured anyone coming to save him. Hunter, Sheila, Pyran-

_'Pyran.'_

Spyro's heart began to thud loudly against his chest. Everyone in that caravan had at least one son or daughter. If Pyran had got it in his mind to gather up a group of heroes out of the children of the missing parents, then that meant that he was going to deal with the likes of Mortigon. A speck of ash, blown by the wind, landed on Spyro's nose, and immediately Spyro pictured that wasted dove to be Pyran instead. Tears began to burn in his eyes.

Spyro didn't even notice that Muugara was leading him until he was being hooked up to the wall once again. The other captives watched him as tears flowed down his face. He kept imagining those doves and that explosion of magic that Mortigon had sent to waste them all. What if his next target was his son? From the looks on Elora's face, she could tell what he was thinking, as she suddenly went limp in her chains and sighed deeply.

"And that concludes our little tour, Spyro." Muugara chuckled. "Or maybe you want to see my gadgets, yes?"

"You can stick your gadgets up your-"

"I suppose that's a yes, then?" Muugara was oblivious to the utter hatred the purple dragon felt for both Mortigon and Muugara right now. His purple eyes glimmered with a hidden fire that burned with the desire to see both of them meet their match. Everyone who was also a captive, even Ripto, smiled at the look on Spyro's face.

Muugara pulled out his glove with the metallic claw attachments and held it up for all the captives to see. "You may think that something this powerful runs on batteries, but you'd be wrong. All of my gadgets are powered with the same power source, and said power source is so powerful that none of my inventions ever run out of power!"

He then pulled out something that was embedded in the glove. Pinched between two of his claws was a purple crystal. Spyro and Nazza gaped at the gem, as they knew exactly what it was. With its shell brimming with dark energy, the crystal could be nothing but the shard of a Dark Gem.

"Beautiful, isn't it? With these babies powering up all of my inventions, nothing can stop me!" Muugara joyfully said. The captives all imagined the dragon putting Dark Gems in tons of dangerous equipment like the glove that injured Airazor. The idea was almost too horrible to bear.

"...Where did you get those Dark Gems?" Snowflake asked. She had recognized those gems all too well. A good week of Spyro's life was spent smashing them to bits to rid the Dragon Realms of their tainted evil. She remembered the stories Spyro had told to her, and when she snatched a glance with Ripto, she now dreaded the idea of more than one of the foes Spyro fought in the past joining this dire situation.

"It was simple really. About two weeks ago, The Queen had discovered an army of your gnorcs venturing around in her territory. I decided to investigate along with a good-sized squadron of Desolation Gnorcs. Sure enough, a good-sized army was being led by some red-scaled buffoon with a staff and a gnorc that was able to speak the normal tongue." Muugara was pleased at the way all the passengers paled in color at the description of two very familiar people.

"Boy, it ended shortly after it even started. The Desolation Gnorcs darkened the sky with their wings and then they descended on the army before they could shout for help. I still revel in the memory of all the gnorcs' dying screams as the gnorcs of desolation ripped them to shreds. We lost only ten of our troops, and only to the leaders; all those weak land gnorcs had been stripped to the bone."

"Stripped to the bone? You mean those things eat gnorcs?" Spyro blurted out. He strained to look again out the open door to catch another glimpse of the winged beasts of burden, but he remembered the savage aura they bore. Those sharp teeth, those sharp claws...

"Why, yes they do. It's a very tasty treat to them." Muugara quickly jumped back into his story, twirling the Dark Gem shard with one of his claws as he did so.

"All that was left on that bloodstained ground was the gnorc leader and the dragon mage. The gnorc had armor that practically glistened with the blood of his fallen troops and he looked about ready to faint. The dragon, such a weak-stomached worm, was vomiting on the ground before him like a weak little child! He couldn't even stand the sight of blood, that little wuss! Weaklings, the both of them!"

Ripto shook his head at the mental images he received from the story Muugara was telling. He could practically imagine the trauma the two of them had suffered that day. Weakly, he tried to picture what he would do if he saw his entire riptocian army slain before his feet, their blood smearing the ground at his feet, but it was almost too frightening to bear. He never liked those two, but they certainly didn't deserve the treatment they got. With a sigh, he lowered his head almost in respect and quietly muttered,

"Poor Red and Gnasty Gnorc."

"Red and Gnasty Gnorc are their names, eh? Could've fooled me! I would've guessed that their names were 'Vomiting Weakling With Staff' and 'Armored Wuss'. Anyways, it doesn't matter now. The Red dragon you know so much about has been stripped of everything worth of value and has been enslaved by the Muu Dragon tribes that border near the Valley of Skelos."

Nazza and Spyro's ears perked up at the sound of a familiar name, but otherwise, none of them said a word. Spyro tried to say to himself that Red deserved what he got, but the resulting thought seemed bitter and venomous. Seeing his entire army ripped to shreds and then being enslaved by some cruel dragons was not the treatment that Red needed.

"Hopefully, the tribe members will value him as a slave. If not, well, he's either property of The Queen or he's just another ration of meat for the Muu Dragons."

"Ration of meat?" Snowflake said with horror. "But...they're dragons! They can't eat one another..."

"_Your _dragons waste meat when the dead fall, but my kind doesn't. If Red is of no use to them, they will kill him and eat his flesh. A meal is worth more than a slave is in the desolate realms." Muugara explained rather darkly to them. Spyro felt bile rise to his throat at the idea. The thought of Red get torn to pieces by hungry dragons and then eaten flashed through his head.

"As for this Gnasty Gnorc you talk about, he too is a slave. But he's a much feistier one than the Red dragon. The Red dragon was little more than a pampered wuss that couldn't bear a little bloodshed, but the armored Gnorc that can speak the normal tongues is more seasoned. Course, I would expect it, since he does come from a race born to kill. According to the gargoyle messagers we receive, he's already killed two Muu Dragon tribe members and has attempted escape five times."

"And I suppose Red doesn't try to escape either?" Mell asked. The way Muugara prattled on, it made Gnasty Gnorc and Red sound like anything but what they were. Red probably couldn't get used to the treatment he was getting from dragons that worked alongside ravenous monsters, but Gnasty Gnorc probably could. The leader of the gnorcs had developed a distrust for dragons a long time ago, so being enslaved by them probably didn't surprise him one bit.

"He tried once, but Brandimuu beat him so badly that he has trouble walking now. Serves the little wuss right. And since he's a slave with a limp, well, it's only a matter of time before-" Muugara paused, smiled at his audience, and then dragged his finger against his throat.

"They wouldn't dare..." Eledor tried to speak, but her throat was too tight from the fear she felt. If Muugara was busy fooling around with the Dark Gems he stole from Red's staff, then she knew that the story was real. Airazor groaned in pain right next to her, but at least he wasn't getting beaten with the threat of death hovering over his head. Not anymore.

"The Queen might find him useful, but that's the only hope that red wuss has. The Gnasty Gnorc fellow has a lot of use to the Muu dragons. He can speak in the gnorc language, therefore, he can send messages to The Queen without having anything lost in translation. There have been several occasions where he purposely messed up the message he was delivering, but a few good beatings from Muu-ray made him stop. He has a rather unbreakable spirit, that gnorc. Why he chose to work for that weak little dragon is beyond me."

"Who is this 'The Queen' person you keep talking about?" But Mell's question went unheeded. Muugara then began to walk out the caravan without speaking another word. He blew out the lantern behind him, so that when he shut the door, complete darkness cloaked Spyro, Elora, Eledor, Airazor, Snowflake, Ripto, Mell, and Nazza and they had nothing to do except to think about what was happening to their children and the two villains trapped in the realms of desolation.

An hour after Muugara had left the slave caravan, Mortigon instructed that every horde member was to break camp and head back to their homelands in the desolate realms of their birth. Horrible monsters roared in glee as they flung everything they owned on their backs and began to hike towards the portal that would carry them away from this land of peace and tranquility. No one in the camp save for the captives liked Avalar at all, and they were more than happy to leave it. With the slave caravan carried by the Desolation Gnorcs being among the last to enter, nothing in the camp remained in the sunburnt sands of Scorch and no indications could be made that they were ever there.

That is, except for five cannons and Muugara.

"Foolish weaklings..." Muugara hissed to himself as he placed a Dark Gem shard into an energy cannon he designed. Mortigon had told him that leaving anything that could help them in the desolate realms was a waste, but this was one of the few times that Muugara went his own way. With a snicker, he pressed a few buttons and delighted in the mechanical howl the cannon made when he booted it up. With the Dark Gems' power controlling them, they were able to fire blasts of energy able to put a hole into the strongest of materials, and they were now able to seek out any living thing flying above them.

"They underestimate the power of the King of Desolation. Everyone in Avalar underestimates his power! Well, we'll see how much they underestimate his power when these babies blast anybody who flies near the portal right out of the sky!"

He glanced lovingly back at his babies, his prized inventions. Had he been obsessed with anything other than the destruction of others, he would've been one of the best scientists seen this decade. With the scorching hot winds searing his wings, he walked into the portal.

All the better, as no one was around to hear him laugh.

* * *

They must've been exhausted from the party and the preparations, for the sun was setting just as Harmony, Glacier, Calub, Torin, Pyran, and Karydor stirred from their sleep. As soon as they were all awake, Calub broke open one of the sealed bags of trail mix and began to share it with all of his friends. As everyone ate their small meal in sitting positions, Glacier saw that Calub was taking the biggest of the handfuls. 

"You pig! You're supposed to save some for the rest of us!" Glacier whined when she compared her share to Calub's. The Woltoc was already stuffing his face full of oats and raisins.

"Well, I'm the most hungry, therefore, I get a bigger share." Calub argued with his face covered in crumbs. Harmony couldn't help but laugh as Glacier and Calub soon got into a fist fight as they tried to even out the shares but while at the same time trying to get more trail mix than the other. The fight was futile, the way they constantly threw trail mix at each other, and soon, more food went over the side of the basket than in their stomachs. Pyran irritably brushed the food particles out of his hair as he ate his food, but he snickered when Torin and Harmony both chastised their siblings for wasting supplies.

Just as they settled down, Fissure made a gleeful trumpet. "We're almost there! Scorch is right below us!"

Pyran pulled the GCT out of his backpack and looked into the monitor. Six differently colored dots were much closer than they used to be before they rose on "The Fissure Express", but according to the GCT, they weren't in Avalar anymore. Pyran scratched his furry faun-like mane. "Strange...How can they be close and yet not be in-"

**_BOOM! _**

A hideous screech tore itself from Fissure's throat and the basket shook underneath his pained throes. Everyone clutched the side to keep him or herself from falling out. Torin signaled them to put everything away in their backpacks to keep any precious supplies from falling out.

"What's happening?" Karydor asked Fissure, but her voice was quickly drowned out by the sound of a magical ball of energy colliding into Fissure again. Fragments of rock flew in the air and the smell of smoke rose to their nostrils. Karydor rose to her feet and saw that a smoking hole had been implanted in Fissure's side.

"...Dark energy...Mortigon set up a trap...Can't..." Fissure's voice was full of pain and his wing beats were getting steadily weaker. He was a Gigas Guardian, but he had used up most of his strength flying nonstop for almost twenty-four hours. When two more blasts hit him, he started to dip.

"FISSURE! DON'T GIVE UP!" Six different voices cried out when the rock dragon began to aim towards the ground. With a low rumble, Fissure folded his wings to his damaged sides and went limp. The balloon's basket was ripped from its tethers that held it to the balloon and soon they were all falling to the ground from a great altitude.

The six children screamed as they held on for the basket for dear life. In the face of danger, suddenly Torin reacted. Without a moment's notice, he wrapped his backpack around one of his arms tightly, wrapped his arms around Harmony's waist, and then jumped.

"**TORIN!**" Glacier shouted when she saw him and Harmony fall from the basket. But then she saw him open the small wings that grew from his back and immediately knew what he was doing. Since all the energy cannons were focusing on the Yellow Gigas Guardian's limp body, they were not being targeted. Torin couldn't fly, but his wings were able to slow his descent. A grin lit up her face.

"Hey, what are you-" Calub's voice was cut off by a terrified scream when Glacier copied her brother and leaped out of the basket with her wings open wide and with Calub in her arms. Just then, Pyran and Karydor decided to take their chances and soon they too were jumping out of the basket and into the desert air. Behind them, they heard Fissure crash on the cannons that had shot him down, destroying them all in the process. Karydor couldn't help but sneak a glance behind her shoulder to look at the injured Guardian.

"He's fine, Kary. He's a Guardian; no cannon could destroy him." Pyran replied. He was the only one among them who could actually fly with his wings, so he was zipping around them and doing back flips while the other children with dragon blood running through their veins had to make do with flapping futilely in hopes that their landing will be soft. Torin and Glacier were starting to grow tired with their passengers in hand, and on more than one occasion, Harmony and Calub were frightened that they were going to slip right out of their grips.

Suddenly, the scenery around them changed as they unknowingly flew through the portal into the desolate realms that Mortigon entered.

The rosy tendrils of the falling sun that blended in to the clear blue sky of Scorch suddenly changed into a hazy atmosphere cloaked with oranges and yellows. The structures of Scorch suddenly changed from well-maintained buildings to crumbling ruins. The rather cheery atmosphere of mountains off to the distance became desolate peaks that were covered with battles still burning.

As the children watched these changes, the ones doing all the flying were jolted from their daze when their feet hit the blood red sand and they went tumbling. Karydor hit the sand face first, while Torin and Glacier tumbled on the ground and later landed on top of the people they were carrying. Pyran was the only one with a soft landing, as his skill in flight made him able to land gracefully on the sand while Harmony and Calub rubbed the bruises that the two Riptgon children apologized profusely.

"Where are we?" Karydor stated when she pulled herself out of the sand.

As they stared off into the distance and into the dangerous land in front of them, each of them clutching their knapsacks full of supplies to their chests, Pyran answered Karydor's question with a voice that was lacking any emotion. His voice sounded like it was being spoken by another person as it echoed through the barren wasteland.

"The Realms of Desolation."

**

* * *

End of Chapter 2 **

No, this isn't an April Fools joke. I posted it!

Fissure is not dead, and the references to Red and Gnasty Gnorc are not there just to waste space, let me tell you. As for the person Muugara calls The Queen, she's to appear in upcoming chapters...

You might think their entrance into The Realms of Desolation seemed just a bit sudden, but you'll see...


	3. Gargoyle Wings and Fish Tails

Gargoyle Wings and Fish Tails  
Rating: High PG  
Author's Notes: Thank you for the kind review, Da Dark One!

* * *

It was late in the morning when the adventurers stirred from their sleep. The six of them had camped close to the portal to Scorch, with the desolate peaks of ruined palaces shielding them from the harsh sandstorms that hit as soon as night fell. They spent the rest of the night either glancing futilely at the horizon in search of hints of where to travel, or they were telling stories of how they were going to defeat Mortigon and save the day. 

Pyran smiled when the smell of bacon reached his nose. For a moment, he forgot about his surroundings and pulled part of his sleeping bag over his head.

"Mom, why is my bed full of sand?" Pyran mumbled, his eyes still shut.

"Gee, I don't know _honey._ Maybe it's because you're sleeping in the middle of the desert with a sleeping bag and a campfire." A female voice replied cheerfully.

Pyran's eyes shot open when he realized that that voice didn't come from any of his friends.

He quickly shot up into a sitting position and saw a yellow sea serpent with brown stripes, a bony brown ridge, and a finned tail greet him from the campfire. A frying pan filled with bacon was held in one hand, and a scimitar was held in the other hand. Pyran was one of the first up, as only Glacier and Karydor were out of their sleeping bags and helping the lion serpent make breakfast.

"Hello there. You won't mind if I visit your camp for a-"

"IT'S MORTIGON!"

Before the lion serpent could finish, Pyran charged after her with his sword outstretched and his mouth screaming a war cry. Torin, Harmony, and Calub immediately jolted from their beds and protested about the racket still half-asleep. The purple scaled draun, unable to figure out why Mortigon would show up to the camp wearing an loose robe, have only one scimitar, and be of a different gender, was immediately stopped when the guest grabbed the hilt of his sword.

"Mortigon? That's a funny way to say my name. Everyone else calls me Fishtail." The lion serpent replied casually, ignoring the sword pointing directly at her stomach. Pyran loosened his grip on the weapon and tried to hide his reddening cheeks as he considered the fact that he almost killed an innocent.

"Not my fault you look like Mortigon." Pyran muttered to the ground. Fishtail gave a hearty chuckle at the sulking dragon youth.

"Sad but true. He's my brother. I have to live with the fact that my own sibling is out killing innocents, enslaving species, and torturing dragons for the rest of my life." She said. She looked almost exactly like Mortigon in terms of looks, but she had bright blue eyes instead of fierce brown eyes, and her tail fin was in the shape of a fish tail, true to her name. She pulled out a plate from a purse hanging around her waist and plopped a piece of bacon on it.

"So I make due by having my turban thieves spy on him." Fishtail added when she handed the plate to Pyran. The son of Spyro nearly dropped his plate, and some of the others stopped their chewing.

"You're the leader of the turban thieves?"

"Not really. There are small groups of them, designated for different jobs. I'm only in charge with the thieves that steal gems and magic items, not dragon eggs. I'm not that immoral." Fishtail explained, flipping a piece of bacon high above her head as she did so. During the split second it was suspended in the air, Fishtail flicked her hand that held her scimitar and grinned when she sliced the bacon three times before it fell.

"I learn a few tricks from them, but I never steal anything that would be worth more than anything materials can bring. No babies, only valuables."

"But isn't it all the same really? Stealing is stealing, no matter what you take." Karydor said quietly.

"Even if I'm stealing stuff that will more useful in someone else's hands? I'm sure Robin Hood is considered a hero even though he stole things; he did after all make lives easier for the peasants." Fishtail replied. She reached inside her robe and pulled out a rolled up piece of yellowed parchment with a grin on her face.

"I'm sure I can give the poor what I stole from the rich. This map will save you a lot of wondering around aimlessly." With the flick of her wrist, she unrolled the parchment and indicated the many landmarks and points of interest scribbled on it. The six questing children all gazed at the map in awe, but Harmony frowned when she saw the name written in beautiful calligraphy at the top of the page.

"What's 'Lavara'?" she asked as Pyran snatched the map from the sea serpent and grinned at the fact that he was one step closer to being a hero.

"It's Lah-vaire-rah, sweetie. That's not how you pronounce the a in the second syllable." Fishtail paused to give the woltoc an unneeded lesson in pronunciation.

"Lavara is where you are. Ever since Laigon came here and established himself as the King of Desolation, the folks have been calling this place 'The Realms of Desolation'. I think that's dragon dung, even if this place is desolate thanks to him." Fishtail hissed. The ridge that ran down her spine bristled in anger, and it was easy to spot how she was related to Mortigon.

"You mean it wasn't always this way?" Calub inquired. He let his eyes wander to the horizon, where he could spot not a single structure higher than a boulder. The landscape was utterly lifeless, and it seemed that it always was so.

"Not to say that this place was crawling with sunshine and happiness, but at least the Muu Dragons were friendly back then." The female lion serpent then sat down on the sandy ground and started to explain a brief overview of Lavara's history while at the same time dumping the bacon grease from her skillet onto the dirt.

"They say when realms fall to chaos they crumble into desolation, and that's what this place did. Many thousands of years ago, there was a war involving Gigas Crystals. Though many fought to prevent the inevitable, nothing could stop the magic of the gems to be unleashed. Every creature caught within the chaotic maelstrom perished. For many years, the realms were completely lifeless."

"But then lives did form. Dragon species began to emerge from the ground with toeless feet, mottled scales, and cunning minds. Riptocs burrowed from the ground as giant worm monsters, gnorcs sprouted wings and took to the air, and rhynocs journeyed deep into the volcanic regions on many limbs. Life was relatively different from the life we were used to, but they managed to coexist quite...easily. The gnorcs, rhynocs, and riptocs were of course murderous animals, but the Muu Dragons managed to build a great society full of scholars and great thinkers. Much different from their tribal beliefs that Laigon practically beat upon them."

"Pfft. That's a total load." Pyran said as he rolled his eyes. The others glanced back at him harshly, as Spyro's son had caused his fair share of trouble for today already. "I mean, come on! Winged gnorcs? Burrowing worm riptocs? Is the desert heat getting to your head, you old bat?"

Fishtail smiled a smile that was always associated with misbehaving children. Had Pyran been her age and called her that, she would've challenged him to a duel of honor. "Honey, I've been living in the desert since before you were born. I think if anything, the heat's getting to you, little hothead."

Pyran blushed when he heard the insult and tried to hide his reddening cheeks with the map by pretending to bury himself in the details. That's when he noticed three different markings on the paper. He recognized them as the symbols of the gnorc, riptoc, and rhynoc armies, and from the way they were arranged, Pyran could see that it was the fastest route to get to where Mortigon's palace was indicated.

As if she was reading his mind, Fishtail added, "Use that map to get to my bro's palace and give him the rude awakening he so justly deserves. You'll have to travel through the three lands of the Desolation species I've told you about, but that'll be a piece of cake for the children of the prophecy."

"Children of the prop-"

"Oh, and if you find any Muu Camps, try to look for strange looking slaves." Fishtail pretended not to hear Torin's question as she covered up her mentioning on what she knew about the six children before her. Had they've been any other group of young adults traveling through uncharted lands, Fishtail would've just stolen their unguarded provisions and been on her way. She wasn't honorable in her takings, but by doing so usually made the travelers give up and go back in Avalar where it was much safer.

Sadly, Red and Gnasty Gnorc didn't take her thievery as a warning...

"Strange looking slaves?" Glacier asked, snapping the serpent out of her thoughts. She kept up her facade of a very playful personality by chastising Glacier in a nonserious way.

"Do I hear an echo? Yes, strange looking slaves. You know, creatures with jutting jaws, purple spikes running down their spine, or an almost gnorc-like demeanor. According to the gargoyles that fly by here, they have magic that could kill a Desolation Riptoc!" Fishtail explained. She wanted to just shout out and say that two of Spyro's older villains got themselves captured by the Muu Dragons, but she knew that saying so will only get the little hothead fired up.

"Wow, it must've taken Mortigon a while to get a handle on those guys!" Calub exclaimed. His brain immediately conjured up an image of daring heroes armed with powerful magic.

"Actually, it only took him about three days to find out that they took an army into his realms, and only two hours to take care of the problem. Rather discreet, my brother is." Fishtail recalled with a sigh. Turban thieves were still stealing from that rather unfortunate battle site. Her section of the legendary Thief's Den was practically covered with signia of the gnorc army.

"You seem to know a lot about Mortigon. Why don't you come with us?" Karydor offered softly. Immediately her friends murmured similar words of agreement. Soon they were all asking for the sister of their main foe to be their guide or even a friendly companion in an unfriendly place. But Fishtail couldn't accept.

"Uh, I'd love to, but sadly, I can't. I can make it through the desert by myself." The situation began to make Fishtail Mortiklaww rather uneasy. She had told her thieves and gargoyle companions not to steal from the youths, but if she wasted too much time, they'll assume that she was killed in action and come rushing out in great numbers to bathe in these children's blood. With a hesitant wave and a cheerful smile, she rose from her feet, buried the grease she poured onto the sand, and started to head for the small camp that she set up out of view.

"Anyway, it was nice meeting you!" Fishtail called over her shoulder as she briskly jogged away from the six children. Happy farewells, apologetic in Pyran's case, floated from the campsite and greeted her. She risked another wave back to them, the broad grin on her face reflecting the exact opposite of what she was thinking.

'_May the gods have mercy on their souls...'_

* * *

"King Desolation wants a word with you, punk." 

Airazor wrinkled his nose at the smell of someone's fetid breath breathing down on him. His head pounded, his tongue was dry, his legs felt like they were full of pins and needles, and his side felt like it was on fire. Merely opening his eyes took a lot of effort. When he found himself staring into the dewy blue depths of Muugara's eyes, he managed to regain some of his strength from adrenaline alone.

"How's the wound, weakling?" Muugara hissed.

"It's a really painful and open wound that will leave a horrible scar, fine thank you. How very kind of you to care." Airazor shot back. The Muu Dragon answered this remark by only rolling his eyes and unlocking the chains that held Airazor in place. The rhygon fell to the floor with a thump, and what made matters worse was that he landed on his feet. Daggers of pain drove themselves into his side. A tear rolled down his eye but no cry of pain would come out.

"What's the matter, weak little punk? The pain of failure too harsh for your soft body?" Muugara taunted as he saw Airazor strain against his bonds to keep the wound from opening again.

"You might want to still your tongue. My wife's a Priestess for Aurora." Airazor remarked casually. As he said so, a flash of blue lightning hit Muugara right in the back. The dragon didn't even flinch as the magic scattered harmlessly off his scales, and he gave a proud grin to Airazor.

"Her weak rhynocian gods can burn in the pits of Tiamat for all I care. Besides, from what we learned during the Great Gargoyle Enslavement, we Muu Dragons are immune to air magic and petty religions."

"As much as I love to discuss about religion, you've obviously got me untied from the wall for something. Is Laigon going to vaporize me, or maybe he's going to try to be honorable and let me choose my mode of death?" The rhygon, deciding that nothing he would do made much of a difference at this point, decided to have a rather unserious outlook on his situation. Muugara took this as a way of mocking him, as this was the first time any of his prisoners ever had this tone of voice to him.

"As much as the King of Desolation wants to fry your arse, you're being spared. Just a little talk with my lord and you can hang with your girlfriend and your hybrid spawning companions as long as you like." The Muu Dragon hissed. He jabbed his metallic glove's claws into Airazor's stomach and let a mild channel of electricity to run through. The jolt made the gray-scaled dragon hybrid go limp, but he kept his sarcastic smile on his face.

"Sounds like fun."

Without another word, Muugara dragged Airazor out of the slave caravan and onto the camp. Unlike the trip with Spyro, he didn't pause to show the rhygon the Desolation Gnorcs or the shooting grounds. Besides, the dragon wasn't in the mood to be showing a weakling any aspects to the camp. Airazor's claws left twin tracks in the sand as he leaned back while Muugara was dragging him and pretended to be a water-skier. With a growl, Muugara swatted Airazor in the snout with his tail and tossed him in Mortigon's tent.

The first thing that hit Airazor was the smell. Rotting flesh and fetid trophies of victories won hung in the tent. The gray rhygon quickly wrapped his hands around his nostrils to keep the smell from penetrating more than necessary. Mortigon had hung decapitated heads, skins that were still wet, skulls caked with blood, and various other trinkets to prove his power. Buzzing insects droned in Airazor's ears. Apparently, Mortigon liked his tent to resemble a rotting corpse from the inside.

The rhygon immediately forgot about the tent when he noticed the owner. Mortigon was wearing his cloak, but what gartered the most attention was his double-bladed scimitar. Now that Avalar's main source of elemental energy was in the wrong realm, it buzzed and crackled like a severed power wire. Airazor knew that Mortigon was holding the most lethal magic ever seen.

"Sit down, Wart." Mortigon commanded.

Airazor had heard that tone of voice used by Changeling so many times that it was almost difficult to fight the impulse to immediately obey. The gray rhygon instead folded his arms across his chest and managed a glare at Mortigon. He wasn't a slave anymore, and he certainly wasn't going to take orders from a maniac.

"The name's Airazor now, Mr. High and Mighty. You call me Wart, I'll have to call you Laigon." Airazor stated. Immediately, Mortigon reacted. His eyes blazed with a hidden fire as he sprang to his feet.

"Don't you dare say that name to me!" He leapt into the air and swung his blade at Airazor. The split second that the gray dragon thought that his time has come and he was going to be gutted by another crazed stealer of the Gigas Crystals, a two-fingered hand grabbed his wings and pulled him backwards. Airazor landed on his back and was staring up at Muugara confronting his master. A brief flicker of compassion passed through the rhygon.

"My liege, you mustn't gut the bait before the prey wanders into the trap." Muugara instantly replied. He looked down, saw the blade inches from his belly, and shivered when he realized how close he was from getting gutted by his own boss. Mortigon put the blade away, but he uttered no apologetic word to his lackey.

Airazor rose to a sitting position. "Wait, what does he mean by that? Are you saying that we're-"

"-An old-fashioned way to reel in six children to their doom? Why, yes it is." Mortigon stated happily, as if it was an elaborate joke. He then flaunted his power by slicing nearby horseflies in two with his weapon. Muugara had to duck as the blade whizzed by his head and nearly sliced his ears in two. "Course, the world will be more than happy to be rid of them. They soil the very soil with their hybrid heritage; a mockery of life itself!"

Airazor shivered as Mortigon adopted a very low hissing voice and lowered himself on his knees so that they were eye to eye. He brought his beaked snout so close to his that they nearly touched. "I'll be extremely pleased when I see them fail and I can spit on their very corpses."

Their brown eyes met. Airazor narrowed his at Mortigon. Such empty threats would've influenced him back during The War of the Gigas, but not anymore.

"You monster." Airazor said, more as a statement than as an exclamation.

"Monster? I'm afraid I'm much more powerful than a monster, Wart." Mortigon replied, rising to his feet. The air crackled with the magic of the six Gigas Crystals imbedded in his two blades. Airazor remembered the story Spyro told him in the caravan about the flock of doves being vaporized by a single blast from Mortigon; from the looks of it, the sea serpent was going to have a lot of fun using the same magic on Karydor and the others.

"Demon, then. The word I was looking for is DEMON!" As soon as the rhygon said the last word, he leapt to his feet and let his emotions get the better of him. Fueled by rage, Airazor aimed a punch at Mortigon. His fist connected with Mortigon's chest, but the reptilian foe didn't even so much as back up another step. Airazor immediately realized what a terrible mistake he made and tried to back away from the serpent.

The King of Desolation was swifter. With a sadistic grin on his face, Mortigon aimed his gem-covered blade at Airazor's stomach and shot him with a blast of magic energy. The force of the blast sent the gray-scaled dragon hybrid skidding across the dirt floor. Airazor howled in agony as he felt fire travel through his veins. His skin started to itch, like something was growing on top of it...

_'No! Anything but that!'_ Airazor whimpered in his mind as he felt the magic of the Gigas recreate the very thing that Changeling caused to him; mutations that turned him from a handsome rhygon into a horrible monster. And then suddenly, the pain faded. Airazor scrambled to his feet and checked his body for any warts. It was all just an illusion, a very painful demonstration of what might come.

"You mustn't use actions like that in the presence of the King of Desolation. Or else you'll end up just like the days you were working with Changeling, covered in marring warts and being beaten senseless every hour on the hour of which your master pleases. And, now that I have the power of the Gigas at my hand, I can do more than just mutate your looks. Try shape shifting of the most painful variety, where you feel your very bones grind against one another as you become something else."

Mortigon was pleased in the way Airazor paled at the thought.

"I own the Gigas Crystals, and the Holders have to listen to me."

"What about Mell and Nazza? Last time I've checked, they aren't holders." Airazor added. He was going to mention Scorch's name, but he knew that he shouldn't add another prisoner onto Mortigon's list. Even if Mell and Nazza were here on accident, switching them with Scorch was not going to solve anything.

"'_Come unto us six hybrid babes_.' the prophecy says. I'm afraid those two little monsters are in for the ride." Mortigon replied. He remembered Nazza with anger, remembering the way the wolf had betrayed his former master Changeling back in the Mystic Mountains. When the prophecy was fulfilled, Nazza will be among the first to execute...

"Prophecy? What are you dragging us into?"

"Simple, Wart. A prophecy written back in the time when these Muu Dragons were peaceful scholars states of a time when six hybrid babes will come save their parents. Their very appearance in my world-"

"Not your world. You stole it from the Muu Dragons and made them your faithful slaves!" Airazor cut in. He felt another blast of magic run through his veins immediately. The pain faded much faster than it did when Mortigon was giving a demonstration, but Airazor felt that something about him was amiss. Something on his head itched, but when he reached up to scratch it, he froze in shock. There was a bumpy growth on his head that he never wanted to feel again.

'Warts.'

"Nah ah ah, Wart. Words like that can change a man. Besides, it's not like you can understand the prophecy..." And with that, Mortigon began to sing a verse of the prophecy just to prove himself right and Airazor wrong. The tone was almost like a final hymn sung at a funeral. Airazor felt the rhythm pump through his veins, and even Muugara ceased his chattering to listen.

"_Of the blood that runs through veins,  
And makes the spirit stronger.  
There are times when purebloods fall,  
And desolation lasts even longer.  
Bring unto us six hybrid babes,  
And have them quest in lands forsaken.  
It's their time to prove their worth,  
In The Realms of Desolation._"

"...So, are you telling me that a ballad of hybrids is what's making you target our children? Why now and not when they were younger?" Airazor replied. His hand was still on his head, feeling the strange warts that Mortigon had given him through the magic of the Gigas Crystals.

"The signs didn't appear until the month before I stole the Gigas Crystals. Two leaders of the gnorcs meeting their downfall upon the dirt of Desolation. Twenty years of imprisonment from a fallen leader. The death of the last Muu Dragon priestess. It all adds up, Wart!" Mortigon exclaimed, his voice rising to an insane pitch. His emotions were getting the better of him, and soon he was shaking Airazor by the shoulders as he added his final expression. Airazor couldn't stand to look into those eyes, which were dilated with excitement and filled with a crazy spark. It chilled him to the bone.

"The stars themselves see my rise to power! I will become the Ruler of Desolation! I will become stronger than Changeling! I WILL BE THE MOST POWERFUL RULER TO HAVE EVER LIVED!"

Mortigon was seized by a bout of maniacal laughter. The gray rhygon couldn't stand it. The ruler of these desolate lands scarred by war and wrongly used magic was a complete nutcase with extremely potent magic that surrounded him in bloodthirsty monsters and rotting corpses.

But this monster had also managed to make a plan so cunning that not even Spyro had a chance of escaping. For all he knew, the six darling children that Airazor knew since their births were going to die at his hands. Tears flowed from his eyes in an unstopping flood as he sobbed unknowingly on Muugara's shoulder.

"Come on, punk. We should leave." Muugara replied. Airazor immediately shot up from his pillow of tears to look at the ruthless Muu Dragon and expected him to cause more pain to him. Instead, the dragon was relatively sedated and seemed to show another emotion besides crazy devotion to Mortigon. With a dejected groan, Muugara grabbed Airazor's chains and started to half-heartedly drag him back to the slave caravan.

"What was that about the Muu Dragon priestess?" Airazor tried to see if he could ask the right question as he looked at Muugara. His expression was as if carved by stone, but he saw a brief flicker of sadness in his eyes when the priestess was brought up again.

"She was murdered very brutally. It involved the last level of my training to be Mortigon's second in commander. In order to be accepted, I had to-" Muugara froze when he realized whom he was talking to. Instantly the insanity to obey Mortigon returned and he punched Airazor right in the chest. The gray rhygon wheezed in pain.

Airazor let himself be chained to the wall, but instead of watching Muugara with wariness, he watched him with pity. Something about this situation didn't seem right to the rhygon. Prophecies, bad omens, two villains caught in the maelstrom, Muugara and a priestess.

The thoughts ran through his head so much that it tired him out. With a sigh, Airazor fell to sleep, ignoring the painful itching his new warts were giving him.

'_He may think he's got the upper hand...but we'll find a way...'_

* * *

In the lands of Lavara, as Fishtail had named the lands of desolation, gargoyles were a source of great information. Being winged creatures with hard, almost rocky, skin, the gargoyles were among the only creatures besides the Desolation Gnorcs that could fly through the lands without getting killed. They were loyal, could speak in many languages, and were able to travel vast distances in a small amount of time. Mortigon, seeing their usefulness, had ordered that every last gargoyle be enslaved by the Muu Dragons so that they could deliver important messages at any time. 

However, sometimes, a gargoyle was not always useful.

"Okay, the bean has the wagon bread as a grave." Kannica repeated to herself as she flapped her wings hesitantly before the dragon standing in front of her. She was a relatively small gargoyle, draconic in build, but she was quite well known throughout her entire population as one giant screw-up. There was always a new way to slack off on her job for the King of Desolation, be it getting distracted by shiny things, forgetting the message, or screwing it up all together.

"No, no, no! It's 'The Queen has the Dragon Red as a slave'! Can't you ever send a message correctly?" The Muu Dragon shouted to her face.

"I would if you could motivate me more. Maybe a few cuts in the profit will do-" Kannica was cut off when the dragon slapped her with the back of his hand. The blow sent the little gargoyle reeling, as she was only the height of the dragon's knee and was standing on a post set in the ground in order to be eye level with her instructor. She fell to the dirt floor with a plop, and she was kicked aside by the dragon's toeless feet.

"If you weren't so useful in translating those barbaric gnorcs, I'd slice you up and serve you to the slaves, gargoyle." The Muu Dragon hissed. "Now get out of my sight!"

Kannica had no trouble in obeying his orders. With an angry flap of her wings, the little draconic gargoyle flapped to another section of the camp. She took enough time to steal a meal from one of the slaves before landing on top of a green statue of a Muu Dragon. She slurped her soup up, taking out all of her frustration on the leftovers floating in the liquid.

"These Muu Dragons are all the same! Never letting me have any of the shinies. I mean, look at this statue!" Kannica complained to herself. She tapped a foot on top of the statue's nose, breaking off a part of the horn adorned on top. "It's almost as if some creature came along and froze some Muu Dragon into an emerald statue. Course, the chances of a Muu Dragon having that kind of power is rather-"

Her voice was cut off by a rather horrible scream. Kannica stopped herself and watched as the leader of the camp came stomping into view. Brandimuu was Muugara's younger brother, and it showed. The dragon looked almost identical to Mortigon's right hand dragon, with the exception of buffer muscles in the arm and leg areas and scars littering his entire body. Sometimes Kannica wondered whether or not Brandimuu had more scars than scales on his body.

And dragging behind him and hooked to rather strong chains was a gnorc. The sight was rather uncommon to Kannica, as all the gnorcs she was familiar with had wings, wolf-like snouts, and a thirst for blood. This one, while rather strongly built, seemed more human-like with arms that were designed for grasping things, and not for flight, and legs that were much more powerful than the spindly little things The Desolation Gnorcs had. He was wearing only tattered rags around his waist; his chest was marred with scars, bruises, cuts, wounds, and infections. Kannica noticed his face, though crinkled up with pain, showed no sign of servitude from the monster towing him.

The little gargoyle caught only the final part of probably a large argument between them, and judging by the look of some of the fresher wounds, the gnorc had to pay for his misdeed.

"...A useless slave with no hopes of escape whatsoever. You hear me, punk? If you were anything but a gnorc that can speak the Universal Language, I'd gut you right here and now!" Brandimuu shouted, which looked quite humorous with the fact that he was only one third the gnorc's height. The creature chained up, despite its larger height and bigger body mass, had no choice but to comply with the dragon.

"Yes, Brandimuu. I will never disobey you again." The gnorc said in mock obedience, blood flowing from a cut on his lip.

"It's Brandimuu SIR!" The slave driver then jabbed his pink wrist claws into the open wound on the gnorc slave's chest. He immediately fell to his knees, a scream of pure agony tearing itself from his throat. Kannica couldn't help but shiver, but she was pretty glad that she wasn't the target of the torture for once.

"Yes Brandimuu _sir_. I will never disobey you again." The slave hissed in pain. With a smile, Brandimuu patted him on the back, but the dragon made sure to pat a spot that had a tender bruise on it. The slave pretended not to feel a thing, even though he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out in pain.

"Good. You're making progress, punk. And I don't want you turning any of my troops into those crazy green statues. I need my troops alive, not as some giant sparkly emeralds!" When Brandimuu said those words, Kannica's ears perked up. She had thought that the very eye-appealing statue she was perched on was a relic stolen from some poor family of rebels. The rest of her meaty broth forgotten, the little gargoyle quietly followed Brandimuu as he dragged his slave to his post.

"Now, I don't want your sorry hide to leave the safety of my camp, so I'm binding you nice and tight..." Brandimuu muttered as he took the chains that were wrapped around a steel post and wrapped them around the wrists, ankles and neck of his slave. The linked chains, while broken and rusty, were actually pretty strong. Like his brother Muugara, Brandimuu was skilled in inventing new ways to torture people. One of his first inventions happen to be barbed chains, which were as strong as magically-reinforced steel and dug deep into the slave's skin if they struggled. They were also prone to infecting the wounds with specially coated rust that Brandimuu also patented.

Kannica couldn't help but feel elated when Brandimuu left the beaten green gnorc to sit dejected in the worn-out tent. The chains around his wrists were so tight that the broken links in the chains dug into his skin, leaving giant gashes. Infected cuts surrounded the creature's hands, and Kannica felt a rather minor pain of grief when she found that she couldn't even count how many gashes, bruises, and scars that littered his body. Checking to make sure that Brandimuu wasn't within hearing range, she flapped towards the slave and called for his attention.

"Hey, gnorc!"

He lifted his head and blinked his eyes at the little gargoyle sitting on the post that kept him sitting here, as if Kannica was but a figment of his imagination. When he saw that she didn't disappear when he blinked his eyes, he groaned.

"Ah, great. Another gargoyle. Look, if you're going to brag about how much better off you have than me-"

"No, no, no. I come here to strike a deal with you." Kannica immediately replied. She knew exactly how rude the gargoyles could be with chained up slaves, especially since she usually was the one insulting them above anyone else.

"I can give you anything you want, Mister...Mister..."

"It's Gnasty Gnorc. Course, I wonder how much value my name has here..." the slave replied. The name rang a bell, and suddenly she knew just why Brandimuu was proud of this slave. He was able to catch _the _Gnasty Gnorc, scourge of all dragons and leader of the gnorcs from the dragon realms. Sure, Brandimuu was risking some of his men when his shiny new pet was able to unleash his spells of crystallization, but as long as he bought him rank...

"Ah, yes. Gnasty. No wonder you can talk with something other than those grunts and growls that your army spoke. Too bad they're all dead. Eaten alive by The Queen's troops!" Kannica mused. She immediately realized that those were the wrong words to say, as the gnorc shivered and had to close his eyes tight to block out the memories of that fateful day.

"Please never mention the events of that day again..." Gnasty Gnorc said, letting no emotion leak into his voice. Knowing that saying anything that Brandimuu could perceive as a plan of escape would cause him great pain, the gnorc then replied in the gnorcian language of grunts of growls. The Muu Dragons couldn't learn a single word of the gnorcs' language, the main reason why gargoyles were so useful. "_Would it also make any difference if I asked if you could help me...relocate myself_?"

"It'll cost you." Kannica replied simply, indicating that she could understand. Gnasty Gnorc heart sank and soon he momentarily forgot secrecy as he shouted to her in the language that he felt more comfortable talking.

"Listen, gargoyle. I'm chained to a post! My armor and my club are in a separate tent! I can't exactly buy you a brand new car when rusty chains are digging into my flesh and crazed dragons are beating me senseless every day!" Gnasty Gnorc shouted. "Unless..."

"Unless what? You have shinies?" Kannica interrupted.

"_Not yet, but I can make shinies. Out of living things, even. I'm sure you want to see some Muu Dragons turned into statues_..." Gnasty explained. The little gargoyle smiled when she heard him verify his magic abilities, but she pretended to be unaware of his talents.

"Ah, so you can make statues out of emeralds! Interesting. Course, there's always the chance that you're lying and that Brandimuu is just being an idiot as usual."

"Hey, if I'm lying, then you can...do whatever you gargoyles do to kill liars. Yeah. You probably know some potent magic to protect that tiny little potato-shaped body from death." Gnasty Gnorc replied as he once again switched back to the Universal Language, shrugging his scarred shoulders as he said so. He didn't expect Kannica to immediately bristle at the insult and shout profanities at him.

"I have you know, jackass, that I use the element of wind to kill people who try to scam me!"

"Such language. Rather surprising to hear from someone who can fit into the palm of my hand." Gnasty said, grinning for the first time in quite a while as he said so. This gargoyle may be shifty in character, but she provided him with a good source of entertainment.

"Yeah, yeah. You're not one to talk about size. Anyways, we have a deal; you make me six statues-"

"Two."

"Four."

"Three."

"...Three in a half?"

"When I say three, I _mean _three."

"-Three statues made of shiny emerald..." Kannica finally arrived at a number that they both found reasonable. She switched to the gnorcian language when she heard a Muu Dragon walk past. "..._and I find some travelers ready to spring you free_."

"_Wait a minute! Can't you free me instead? Why do we need to drag some helpless travelers into this when you can cast magic with 'the element of wind'? I don't want anyone else getting enslaved by these monsters_" Gnasty replied, sounding very weird as he did so. The language of the gnorcs, being a tongue that was formed by creatures that favored war and violence, seemed rather awkward when the speaker talked about the safety of others.

"_Are you kidding me? I can't kill Muu Dragons with my magic! The Muu Dragons are immune to gargoyle magic, and if I unlock you from your chains and you go charging in there, they'll beat you senseless and chain you in a way that you can't even twitch without having a barb dig into you_." Kannica growled back. Her jaw hurt from the many sounds she had to form in her mouth and the language in Kannica's ears sounded like a bunch of boars trying to speak to a pack of wolves, but she knew that secrecy didn't always equal comfort.

"_Okay. Find heroes who have magic, free me, and you'll get three statues_. Now quick, I think Brandimuu's shift is over..."

With a flap of her wings, Kannica soared through a hole in the tent's animal hide and headed towards of the portal to Avalar, the one place where travelers always end up crawling out from. She looked down at the camp just in time to see the sunlight glint off the emerald statue that was still sitting in the middle of the camp.

'_Path to riches, here I come!_'

**

* * *

End of Chapter 3 **

A lot less collecting in TRoD and a lot more helping others. Man, it just reeks of Spyro...like it's supposed to. Sorry for the utter lack of one setting, be it the heroes or the enslaved. This was more like a trinity of explaining three different settings. Red was going to appear in this, but the scene made more sense for Chapter 4...

Gnasty Gnorc based off of AHT Gnasty, with a few pinches of my "Corruption" for spice. Geez, I can't keep characters IC.

"Dragon dung" seems like an apt form of negative exclamation to be used in the Dragon Realms to me.


	4. New Friends Among Old Enemies

New Friends Among Old Enemies  
Rating: High PG  
Author's Notes: Tons of Gnasty and Red in this chapter.

No co-actors were harmed in the making of this chapter. A few Muu Dragons, but no co-actors.

* * *

As the sun was sinking into the horizon dotted with raided villages and endless desert, Torin marked the position of his group. So ended the first day of traveling on foot, he mused to himself. He sat next to the burning flames with his wings folded against his back as he examined the map. They were heading northwest, but that's all he knew. The problem with this place was that there were no natural landmarks. Just Scorch's portal a day southwest, mountains in front of them, and endless desert surrounding them. There was no way to tell whether or not they were going to walk into a deathtrap not marked in the map. It made Torin's blood burn.

"Hey Shorty Junior! Your beans are getting cold."

Torin crumpled the map in his hands when he heard Pyran's voice behind him. Petty insults were not doing any miracles for the endless frustration burning in Torin's body.

"Dragon, you are really starting to get on my nerves!"

"Oho, you're quoting your father. I guess I should too. Bring it on, Shorty!" Pyran snorted as he tossed Torin his bowl of food. Torin threw the map to the ground and grabbed his scepter as he rose to his feet. The Son of Spyro saw this as an opportune time for fencing practice, as he pulled his sword from his sharpening rock and assumed a stance. Glacier rolled her eyes at this familiar scene as Harmony dashed in front of both of them.

"Come on, it's our second day of being in Lavara and already you want to kill each other. Save your weapons for the enemy, you two!" she shouted. Pyran smiled a smug smile as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Come on, Harmony. I'm just joking around. If he thinks that he can take me on, then bring him on, I think I smell a barbecue!" Pyran again quoted his father to prove his nonexistent point. The cerulean furred wolf/riptoc hybrid sighed as she brushed her fiery red hair out her face.

"...Do you even have anything remotely resembling a brain in that head of yours, Pyran? Unless there's nothing but hot air in there, which probably is the case, what with you wanting to pick a fight over the lamest of things." Harmony shouted.

Pyran threw up his arms above his head in mock defeat. "Lamest of things? Well, excuse me, Ms. Calm-and-Collected! It's not my fault that I'm suffering from hero anxiety right now!"

Torin raised an eyebrow at the strange phrase. "Hero anxiety?"

"Yes. I'm on an adventure and I haven't engaged in any combat! Not once! I heard of the tales of my father back in the days of fighting Ripto or destroying Dark Gems. He couldn't walk five feet without running into an enemy. Where's the enemies here? Where are the bad guys? Mortigon sent us NOTHING!" The final word of Pyran's half-crazed speech echoed off the very silent landscape, adding emphasis to his words. Everyone stared at the purple-scaled swordsman; they didn't even notice the tiny winged shadow land on the ground just inches away from the light cast by the roaring campfire.

"What? Are you saying that you WANT us to be in danger?"

"It's in my blood to fight against danger! There won't be any danger if I fight against some danger!"

"_You're not making any sense, you moron!_"

"Do I have to make sense? Do I?"

"Yes, you do. Right now it sounds like you want to slay someone just to fulfill whatever's floating in your blood, as you put it. That's a bloodlust, and I don't really think your father had that."

"IT'S NOT BLOODLUST, IT'S BOREDOM FROM LACK OF PERFORMING HERO-Y DEEDS IN THIS GODFORSAKEN DESERT!"

Torin, Karydor, Calub, and Glacier watched as Harmony and Pyran both exchanged shouts and insults. Torin made a show by rolling his eyes at every comment Pyran said and then letting loose a heart-filled cheer for Harmony. Glacier and Karydor both seemed to take more interest in the fire as they both cuffed her hands against her ears.

Calub, however, was watching the small shape scurrying across the ground towards Pyran. Blood tinted light glinted off two pairs of sharp claws. A savage grin appeared on the shadow's face as a membraned claw reached for the arguing youth.

"MONSTER!"

Immediately Harmony and Pyran ceased their argument at the sound of the woltoc's voice. The furry brown sibling of Harmony whipped out his slingshot and aimed a rock at the enemy he spotted. The rock whizzed through the air and bounced off the ground near Kannica's hand.

"Hey, what's the big idea, you big furry jackass!" Kannica cursed as she snatched Pyran's unsheathed sword. She flitted a few steps away from the fire, still clutching the sword in one of her winged claws. "Can't a gargoyle steal a shiiiny sword without having some poor excuse of a hairball aiming rocks at her?"

"No, you can't! That's MY sword from MY mom and you can't have it." Pyran shouted at Kannica. He dove for her, but landed facedown in the sand as Kannica took into the air, the sword held with both clawed feet. A round of high-pitched giggles floated above the draun's head as he pulled himself out of the dirt.

"Aw, really? That's so sweet for your mommy to give you a sharp weapon." Kannica called out. When she heard the little hothead shout an insult that sounded extremely dirty, she blew a raspberry at his direction and then flitted towards the direction of the Muu Dragon camp. As she did so, she kept an ear open for the kids. Sure enough, they were packing up camp and following her at the orders of Pyran.

_'Excellent. Right on cue.'_

For the next three days, Kannica led the kids towards the Muu Dragon camp that contained the provider of shinies. It normally took a gargoyle less than a day to fly that kind of distance, but she knew the limits of the children she was leading and had to adjust her speed accordingly. It irritated her to be flitting back and forth in random directions at a very slow speed, resting when the children rested and sleeping when the children slept, but she would do anything to have those statues in her possession.

Plus it was quite fun to annoy the spiral-horned hothead, as she liked to call him. Throughout those three days of trudging through the desert, Pyran was in a very bad mood. He would barely touch his meals as he sat and glared at the creature that held his sword just out of reach. He would start to charge at her, but then he would usually be held back by what seemed to be a squirrel and a white winged lizard.

'_They may be children, but surely with six of them, at least one of them will survive long enough to undo Gnasty's bonds.' _Kannica thought to herself throughout those three travelling days. When at last the camp was in sight, Kannica darted towards some rock formations that would hide the six children from the guards, dropped the sword, and took off with her regular speed. To the six hybrid travelers, it seemed that she had vanished in a puff of stirred up dust.

But Pyran didn't mind. All he saw was his sword sitting on a rock and away from taunting claws for the first time in three days.

"YES! MY SWORD!" Pyran shouted when he saw the weapon that his mom gave him for his sixteenth birthday just sitting there on a rock. He ignored his friends' questions like why did the gargoyle suddenly drop the sword and fly off when it was leading them through the desert for days, for his mind was addled with sheer glee.

"Pyran, take a look at this..."

Pyran stopped his cheering when his gaze hit the object his friends were looking at. The sword dropped from his fingers forgotten as he stood up and saw the Muu Dragon Camp that was sitting behind the rocks he and his friends were seated behind. The loud noises of Muu Dragons and their slaves working, the smell of sweat and dirt, and the sight of open acts of cruelty made all of them gape. The camp was simple, about sixty individual tents surrounding a center, but the hostility in the air made them all shiver.

"Look!" Glacier shouted as she extended a claw to the direction of the camp's center. From their vantage point, squinting through the dust and sun, they could only make out a green muscular creature getting lashed by a Muu Dragon. The children could hear the leader of the camp shouting profanities at his captive before walking away in a huff.

"We got to save him." Karydor stated. Torin looked from Karydor to the camp. He noted all the Muu Dragons within the camp and how many carried weapons, and then he gave a defeated look at the winged rhynoc.

"You're right. It is a Muu Dragon camp, as Fishtail said, and that slave is pretty strange looking..." Torin inquired, remembering what the lion serpent had said when she had visited their camp. "But how are we going to go in there? It's riddled with guards, they're all carrying weapons, and we have no hope of helping that person."

"Oh yes we do." Pyran said, puffing out his chest as he did so. "I shall go in there and rescue that slave!"

"By yourself? Pyran, that's-"

"Not a bad idea, actually. I think we can work this out to our advantage. It is riddled with guards, Muu Dragon guards to be precise." Karydor replied, cutting Torin's protest off. She reached into her satchel and pulled out her silver wand. The air started to crackle with magic energy as she walked towards Pyran. The draun smiled weakly when he saw the look on the magic user's face. Magic tendrils traced the contour of his body as Karydor held her wand to his face.

"How would you like to be a Muu Dragon, Pyran?"

* * *

Pyran couldn't help but feel nervous as he walked through the camp underneath the guise of a Muu Dragon, armed with nothing but his own wits. 

_'I got to admit, Karydor did a good job._' Pyran thought admirably to himself as he examined his new looks in a pail of water. With his body decorated with strange brown, green, and yellow stripes, his wings being in a dark shade of purple, and his eyes as big and as dewy as the magic could manage, he looked almost like one of them. Of course, since Karydor was only a beginner, she could only create an illusion and not actually change his shape. Pyran felt very uncomfortable when he went through the camp as nonchalantly as possible, as he was the only "Muu Dragon" with toes, more than two fingers on each hand, and without a nose horn.

As Pyran neared the prisoner, a sense of self-accomplishment filled the son of Spyro's heart. Here he was, the offspring of the dragon realms' greatest hero, ready to pull off a mission even his dad had never pulled off. Sneaking through a camp underneath an enemy disguise, keeping undercover, freeing a gnorc-

'_GNORC?_'

Pyran stopped in his tracks when he finally caught sight of who he was saving for the first time. From his viewpoint on the rocks, he thought he was seeing some sort of lizardman or crocodile anthro. Some of his happiness drained from his body when he realized that he was saving a gnorc. He kicked the rough dirt in front of him in frustration, his hoof-like claws making a distinct sound when dragging through the packed soil.

"Nice costume." the slave softly said when he regarded him. The gnorc was forced into a sitting position by the chains that bound him, but he couldn't help but smile when he saw his supposed rescuer come up through the caravan camp. Even with the brutal afternoon sun beating down on his back and scorching his skin, Gnasty felt happier about his situation.

"Costume? You mean you can tell that this is a fake?" Pyran whispered. His purple eyes darted from tent to tent in worry as if Muu Dragons were going to spring in alarm at his very words.

"I can cast magic, kid. I know a magic disguise when I see one." Gnasty Gnorc replied dryly. He gave his chains an experimental tug to alert the little dragon hybrid back to his attended task. Immediately, Pyran bent down next to the post and started undoing the locks with his claw. The chain links hit the ground with a dull thud beside him as he whittled away at the restraints.

"So, you're one of the slaves Fishtail mentioned." Pyran said, his eyes riveted on the final locks. His mind clicked as he was, for the first time, doing what his father would do. Saving people. Happiness filled his body and deluded his senses enough that he didn't see the shadow grow over him. "I mean, if you have magic to kill a Desolation Riptoc, or whatever, why are you-"

Pyran was cut off when a chain whizzed just over his head and connected into the face of the Muu Dragon poised behind him. The dragon jolted when a loud crack sounded in his ears. When Pyran turned around. He screamed at the sight of the Muu Dragon slumped facedown in the dirt with a fountain of blood spurting from a giant cut in his forehead.

"I sure hope you brought companions with you, because I don't think we're going to get out of this place without a fight." Gnasty informed him. Almost on cue, several dragons slithered out of their crude tents made of hide and began to inch towards the freed slave and Pyran. Pyran cursed himself for not bringing his sword when he saw Brandimuu appear in the front of the crowd with two curved blades and a bloodlust glimmering in his eyes.

**CRACKLE!**

Immediately, the entire area around Pyran and Gnasty burst into a fury of red light. Several of the Muu Dragons fell back screaming as white flames consumed their bodies and reduced them to ash. Gnasty turned to face the direction of the incoming new threat, but Pyran smiled when he saw Glacier running in front of his four friends, grinning insanely as she unleashed her gift upon her enemies.

"Pyran! Catch!" Torin shouted as he tossed his friend his sword.

"Ah, great. I'm being saved by children." Gnasty muttered to himself as he ducked and weaved among the ranks of confused Muu Dragons. Even through the chaos, it was loud enough for Pyran, who was right beside him, to overhear it. The dragon/faun crossbreed scowled as he parried incoming attacks with his sword.

"My dad kicked Gnasty Gnorc's ass when he was eleven, so we can kick these wimps' asses in our teens." Pyran said to the slave he rescued as they blocked a good portion of the incoming attacks with sword and chains. The attacks were starting to thin, what with the addition of five new adversaries armed with magic, slings, and swords, but they were still struggling. Gnasty froze when he heard his name being mentioned.

"Spyro's your fath-" Gnasty was cut off when a Muu Dragon behind him stabbed him in the shoulder with its claws. Immediately the gnorc flipped the dragon onto the ground and trampled it underneath him. As Gnasty Gnorc made a beeline for the tent that held his armor and club, he couldn't help but feel the sheer irony of the fact that Spyro's son was unknowingly helping him escape. With a defeated sigh that this was not the way he wanted things to turn out, the gnorc entered a tent and left Pyran with a few precious seconds of fighting an entire squad of Muu Dragons alone.

As the rescued slave properly equipped himself for battle, the entire group of Muu Dragons leapt at Pyran en masse. This would've been the end of Pyran's young but eventful life had Karydor not rushed in with a magic spell of her own.

**"Transmogi Columbidae!"**

A blast of white light consumed the front row of attacking dragons. Pyran gaped as fourteen of his attackers became a flurry of pigeons that floated into the sky like an angry storm cloud made of feathers. The little winged rhynoc grinned to herself as the other Muu Dragons either stared blankly into the group of their former companions or slashed at the birds at the glee of choosing a new and much easier target.

"DIE!"

Pyran pivoted on his left foot only to view a Muu Dragon pouncing at him, its wrist claws aiming at his jugular vein. Time seemed to slow down at a snail's pace as adrenaline pounded through the son of Spyro's body. Immediately, he jumped at the creature and met him in midair, horns first.

He was immediately brought into reality when he felt a dead weight on his head and his vision was clouded by a shower of something red. With a yelp, the dragon tossed the body onto the ground and stared at his handiwork in horror. Two deep holes inflicted in the neck and chest flowed with a strange red liquid. Pyran quivered as he examined just how torn the neck muscles in the Muu Dragon's neck muscles were torn.

As tears welled up in his eyes when he realized just how big of a price heroes had to pay for their work, a wooden club slammed into the back of his head.

Pyran yelped in pain as his vision became a maelstrom of colors and his hearing became a void of unrecognizable rancor. Stars fluttered in front of his eyes as he struggled to keep balance. The Muu Dragon that struck him grinned as he neared his faltering target and aimed for another blow.

ZAP!

Pyran didn't see the Muu Dragon behind him transform into an emerald statue as he struggled to fight unconsciousness. His attacker, now frozen in the poised stance he had, fell to the hard ground and shattered. A large shard of emerald drove itself into Pyran's leg, broke the bone within, and he lost control of his legs. Pyran whimpered in pain as fell against a steel-coated wall that was gray, brown, and green in coloration. The wall seemed to sprout arms to the dazed dragon and it tried to hold him steady on his uninjured foot. When Pyran looked up at whoever had saved him, five blurred images of a gnorc in armor floated over his eyes.

"Wow, kid. I leave you alone for a few moments. Well, all the Muu Dragons are either dead, statues, or have run away. You might want to..." He trailed off when he saw that Pyran had to bend over to vomit some of the blood that was pooling in his mouth. When the dragon/faun hybrid fought to right himself up again, Gnasty Gnorc lifted him up in his arms and started to walk away from the scene of carnage and destruction he left behind.

"This is more serious than I thought. Don't worry, your friend Gnasty Gnorc will help you feel better." he said as he started to walk to where Pyran's friends were resting their wounds. A strange jolt of fear raced through Pyran's scrambled mind. He lifted his head, sending more stars and strange colors to cloud his vision anew.

"Gnasty...Gnor..." the sudden exertion was too much for the dragon. He didn't even finish the word he was saying before he went limp against Gnasty's armored shoulder and his world went black.

* * *

Pyran's world was dark and filled with pain as he returned to consciousness. He moaned in pain as he found himself so weak that he couldn't open his eyes. The battle with the Muu Dragons was a blur. He remembered freeing a slave, and that slave turns out to be one of his father's enemies. He winced as a shiver drove itself up his spine. Was he going to die here, lying on his back in a land ruled by a monstrous lizard? Pyran couldn't help but let tears flow from his shut eyes. 

'I'm sorry Dad. I can't believe I failed.'

Suddenly, large callused fingers pried the young dragon hybrid's mouth open. Pyran was too weak to make any movements against this sudden act of penetrating his body. Then, a very bitter thick broth was poured in Pyran's mouth. The metallic taste made him gag, almost like it was made of...

"Drink it all, sport. I'm sure your father wouldn't want you to die out here." A gruff voice replied, silencing all thoughts completely. Pyran found no reason to disobey, so he let the bad-tasting broth slither down his throat and fill his stomach. Immediately, warmth filled his limbs and strength returned to his bruised and battered body. He could feel the scratches the Muu Dragons had raked upon his body stitch up by themselves. Pyran sat up in happiness, only to wince when the leg that was hit with the statue shard sent waves of fire through his body. His flesh had been mended when he drank the broth, but his bones sure weren't.

Now that he had strength to open his eyes, Pyran surveyed his surroundings. He was in a cave, probably one just a few miles from where he attacked the Muu Dragon camp, and from the looks of it, he was knocked out for the rest of the day. Earthy smells and the fact that the rocks were able to absorb some of the sunlight made the cave a pretty cozy shelter. His friends were all awake, and from the looks of it, they had received some of the flesh-mending potion as well. Only Karydor and Torin were suffering from broken bones, and both cases involved bones broken in the wings. When Pyran looked to where the source of light was coming from, a strangled cry rose from his throat.

"Don't worry. The potion just takes longer to fix broken bones. By next morning, you'll be as good as new." Gnasty Gnorc replied as he stirred a spoon into the pot over the fire. He was now no longer covered in a slave's rag, but rather the armor that had become a recognizable symbol for him over the years. When Pyran saw who fed him the remedy, he skittered backwards, his fear blocking out all feelings of pain.

"Y-y-you're Gnasty Gnorc." Pyran stuttered, his purple eyes wide in shock. Something in the back of his mind kicked himself for sounding like such a wimp when he knew that his father would most likely challenge the gnorc, with or without broken limbs.

'_Ah, geez. I'm stuttering like a coward! If I had both of my legs fully healed...'_

Gnasty seemed to detect the uneasiness from the little dragon hybrid. "Relax, kid. If my intention was to hurt you, I wouldn't have fed you dragon blood."

"DRAGON BLOOD?" Pyran's face paled as bile rose to his throat.

"Yep, from one of the Muu Dragons we killed." Gnasty Gnorc replied as if the subject was for common everyday conversation. The memory of the dead Muu Dragon floated back to Pyran's mind and his stomach churned sickingly.

"But...but...That's wrong!" The draun shouted.

"No. To let you kids die of blood loss and broken limbs would be wrong. Believe me, your other five friends also gave the same reaction, but once they accepted the fact that I was saving them instead of poisoning them, they took the medicine. And since I can't force medicine down an unconscious kid's throat, well, I had to wait longer to heal you." Gnasty Gnorc explained.

"But how does dragon blood heal anything?" Pyran yelled. The thought of life-giving medicine pumping through his father's body, just ready to be taken away by some coldhearted potions master to bottle it up and sell it to ailing people, filled his mind and made him shudder.

"Ever hear of the myths that say how useful all the parts of a dragon is? Like eating a dragon's heart will grant you the ability to talk to all the animals of nature, wearing dragon scales will protect you from any mortal weapon, and drinking dragon's blood will make you invulnerable? They're partially true."

"Do you mean that we'll never get hurt?" Calub called from the foot of the cave.

"No. It turns out that drinking dragon blood only heals you in terms of body. The magic in dragons flows through their blood, so drinking it has healing qualities." Gnasty Gnorc explained. When he noticed the weird looks he was getting from Pyran, he then added, "Course, because you are all residents of Avalar, which has close ties to The Dragon Realms, there's a law against killing a dragon and harvesting it for its blood. Plus it doesn't work if more than three days have passed since you harvested the blood, so you can't exactly bottle the stuff and sell it."

No other questions were asked on the subject, but the children muttered amongst themselves about the legends of different parts of creatures and how they were supposed to be useful. Hours passed, and soon the children fell asleep among the warmth of the campfire, their exhausted bodies snuggled against the rocks in the cave. Everyone wanted to be awake by morning to better save their parents.

All except for Pyran. The little draun didn't move from his seat from the campfire as he sat and regarded Gnasty with an acknowledging look as he polished his club. For a long moment, the only sounds came from the fire and the scraping of wood. Finally, Pyran summoned up the courage to ask the question that was plaguing his mind.

"Why are you helping us?"

It took a while for the gnorc to reply.

"Do I need a reason to help others, especially those in need?" he said, giving Pyran a cold stare with his dark brown eyes. For a moment, Pyran felt hesitant. Just a few days ago, he was talking about slaying people to get rid of his "hero anxiety". Now he felt incredibly stupid at the fact that everyone that seemed like an enemy, be it Fishtail or Gnasty, wanted to help him.

"No, no...I mean...We're the children of your worst enemies...and..." Pyran didn't finish his sentence when he saw the look of the gnorc's eyes. Gnasty Gnorc scowled at the child as he set his weapon down and then returned his attention to repairing some of the cracked leather in his armor.

"You never did anything to earn me any hatred, and I never hold the reason of existence against anybody. From what I see, you're a bunch of confused children that have lost something very dear in this godforsaken place. After seeing thousands of innocents die before my eyes, I promised myself not to let anyone else die while I'm around."

"But my father-"

"Just because your father was a literal pain in the ass doesn't mean I hold you any grudge, kid." Gnasty cut in, with a mild chuckle. Pyran forced out a hesitant laugh, partly because he knew about the story of his father's second encounter with the gnorc and he knew very well what had happened in that battle.

"It's Pyran, if you must know. Not 'kid'. And I'm...sort of sorry for being such a jerk when I mentioned you on the battlefield. I guess my friends are right about me being a hothead." Pyran said with a sigh. It seemed that lately he was picking fights with everybody. Was this really how a hero should act?

"You probably got that from your father, but no need to worry. I have nothing against you. But right now I think it's way past your bedtime, Pyran. Do you want that leg to heal or not?" Gnasty informed. When Pyran heard this, he sheepishly grinned and then scuttled with his one good leg to an unoccupied spot in the cave where his sleeping bag lay. Using his pack as a pillow, his pulled himself in bed and heard the campfire fizz out behind him.

"I suppose asking you for a kiss goodnight would be too much, eh Gnasty Gnorc?" Pyran called to the dark shape hidden near the back of the cave. When no answer came from the strange companion he saved, the draun snuggled into his makeshift bed.

'Boy, I'm going to have quite a story when I save dad.'

Pyran fell asleep immediately, his mind drifting off into dreams of fighting monsters in caves and saving damsels in distress. How ironic it was, for the son of Spyro to befriend one of his father's most hated enemies...

* * *

Red the Fallen Dragon Elder slowly woke from his slumber to the smell of rotten meat. He groaned as it felt like his brain was trying to burst out of his skull. His last memory was of his slave drivers feeding him some bitter-tasting stew. It was either drink it or be beaten senseless, so he had no choice but to drink. 

'_Craven little lizards! I'll show the-'_

Red didn't complete his thought when he found that his arm was stuck to the wall. In fact, as he wiggled his toes and tried to move his legs without success, he found that he was suspended to the wall by some very sticky and foul-smelling substance. Red emitted an irritated growl and he put all of his energy into pulling one of his arms out of the goop. With the help of some well-placed fireballs, Red was able to free his right arm. With a gasp, he saw what was holding him on the cave wall.

It was a very sticky webbing made out of blood, saliva, and the flesh pulled off some unfortunate creature.

A horrified cry rose from his throat and reflexively turned his head away from his arm to no longer view the sticky mess that he was stuck in. It was a bad mistake on his part, as he found himself staring into the empty eyes of a half-eaten gnorc. Pink skin, rotten flesh, and broken bones seemed to protrude out of the decaying shell of the once proud gnorc warrior. The partly skeletal remains of the corpse seemed to grin at his misfortune.

'What kind of place did the Muu Dragons take me?'

Immediately his question was answered when a growl emerged from the darkness in front of him. The pile of bloody skulls stirred as a claw caked with dried blood emerged from the darkness and slammed itself onto the ground. Red found himself staring into a glowing red eye of a very savage-looking creature. It was a monster that was covered from the tip of its bloody muzzle to the ends of its rat-like tail with dark green fur. Spiders, fleas, and various other vermin seemed to swarm over its forest of messy hair.

Red couldn't help but shudder as the creature pressed its muzzle against Red's chest and took in the dragon's scent. The snout of the beast was still wet with blood, and he could hear the squishy sounds of entrails still being chewed within. Judging from the fact that the monster had giant leathery wings and huge bat ears, he was currently be analyzed by the monstrous leader of the Desolation Gnorcs that was known only as The Queen. Standing before him on a nest of wet skulls was the very creature that had ordered the assassination of all his troops.

"How dare you treat the Fallen Dragon Elder Red in such a manner? I insist that you unpin me from this wall and away from this rotting corpse this instant!" Red chanced that maybe The Queen was a stupid monster that could be easily persuaded by a commanding voice. What he got was a savage roar from the creature, a roar that echoed through the entire cave and rattled Red's bones so much that he was afraid that his joints were going to burst.

"Quiet, fool."

The voice came from a rather disheveled looking gargoyle nestled in the fur on the monster's nose. It was rather small, about the size of Red's head minus the horns, and it looked exactly like the stone statues that spew water from human cathedrals. It's face was draconic in nature, and it had paws like a cat and a forked tail. Cracks littered its body, and its voice sounded like an middle-aged woman shouting to a bunch of rowdy children.

"Since you're too much of an idiot to understand The Queen's language, old Vendea'll have to translate for you!" the gargoyle replied. She licked a black forked tongue against her lips as she said so, revealing that she was completely toothless. Vendea gauged Red's reaction as he retorted her statement.

"An idiot? Just because I can't understand the gnorcian language-"

"Yes, you are a complete imbecile." Vendea hissed. "A thickheaded dunce who has more ego than grey matter lodged in that skull of his. A weak and cowardly little worm that still mews for his egg's yolk. You're lucky The Queen is still full and has a special plan involving you, or else she'd jam her claws into your stomach and rip your slimy innards out. Because otherwise, you're a completely worthless piece of gnorc crap!"

In normal circumstances, if Red heard a gargoyle shout that to him, he would've blasted the flying creature into cinders with his magic. However, being plastered to the wall with a giant monster underneath the gargoyle flinging the insults, Red had to keep his temper restrained in fear of whatever The Queen could do.

"I'm not in the best of moods, gargoyle. I'm stuck to the wall next to a dead gnorc, my brain feels like it's going to burst from my skull, I'm completely helpless, and all of my troops have been slaughtered not too long ago. Why do you need me anyways?" Red groaned. Vendea rolled her eyes as if he was asking the stupidest question in the world; the fallen dragon elder grumbled to himself when he realized just how much his pride was taking a beating from this creature.

"To get the talking gnorc, genius. You had a gnorc that could speak in the Universal Language with you, right?" Vendea waited for Red to nod, and then she continued. "Well, if you were smart enough to realize how much The Queen despises your weak brand of gnorcs, you would also know that the only thing she hates more than your gnorcs is the gnorc of yours that can talk."

Red let that register into his mind. He could tell that The Queen hated the gnorcs from his realms, what with the immediate order to execute every last one of them, but the fact that she hated Gnasty Gnorc even worse didn't make any sense. If he was a better target than the troops he bought into Lavara, surely he would've been slaughtered as well during the fight...

"The Queen doesn't want to give her men the satisfaction of draining that gnorc of his blood. I'm sure you can guess your use, Mr. Superior." Vendea replied as if reading Red's mind. The fallen dragon elder shivered when he realized that The Queen was staring straight at him with a large glowing red eyeball; maybe the monster _could _read his mind. With a realm full of flying gnorcs, anything was possible.

"I'm the bait. Must admit, The Queen is quite clever. Course, you do realize that Gnasty Gnorc is with the Muu Dragons and the chances of him escaping from the leader Brandimuu's clutches are pretty slim? Why do you even have me hung up here as bait when you can always go to the camp yourself and slay him there?" Red asked, trying to assume the most friendly posture as he could. Which was pretty hard to do when one was stuck to the wall with a web of rotting flesh and saliva.

The Queen made a hurt gurgling noise, realizing that the dragon had asked a very intelligent question besides the usual that she normally heard from her victims. Vendea shrugged her shoulders. "We specifically ordered for Gnasty Gnorc to be transferred to Brandimuu's camp for the very reason for him to escape. Brandimuu's a total idiot that would only beat him instead of securing him tightly. Most likely the gnorc has already escaped from the camp and is on his way here."

Red raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think that he'll come all the way over here?"

"Why, it's simple really. It's in his gnorc blood to challenge a rematch to anything that dares threaten his power. We destroyed his entire race of magic-born monsters, and now we're supposed to pay for the damages in our blood. Course, looks like the tables will turn for him."

Vendea then launched herself off The Queen's nose and floated towards Red. The dragon tried to swipe at her with his right arm, but the gargoyle succeeded in pinning his arm back into the goop of rotting flesh. She flapped right in front of his nose, and was completely unaffected to any streams of fire blown in her direction.

"That, and from the way you'll be screaming in pain, he'll have no choice but to run in this direction and be ripped limb from limb by The Queen. Sweet delicious revenge." Vendea hissed. Red said nothing, but instead watched as Vendea flitted to a place in the cave obscured by shadows. Sweat started to bead on his forehead as Vendea flew back with two strange objects in her arms. One of them resembled a drill, and the other object resembled a taser. Red tried to keep a stern look on his face when the gargoyle pressed a button the drill and admired the way the gears made a high-pitched whirling sound.

"Be sure to scream extra loud for The Queen, okay?"

**

* * *

End of Chapter 4. **

Author's Notes: Some references to AHT in terms of what Vendea called Red, and why Gnasty Gnorc called Spyro a literal pain in the ass.


	5. Crimson and Viridian

****

Crimson and Viridian

Rating: High PG  
Author's Notes: Desperately sorry with the lack of updates, what with me living my life as a highschooler and all that. That, and I'm very lazy and I found some parts of this chapter hard to write.

-------------------------

"Hold still, Snowflake."

Elora aimed a two-hooved kick at the chains wrapped around Snowflake's right hand as the slave caravan rocked and tilted in many spontaneous directions. Over the sound of the Desolation Gnorcs carrying the caravan over rocky terrain, none of the guards could hear the loud snap of the metal breaking. Snowflake's wrist bones reverberated with the vibration of the kick. Without a moment's hesitation, the dragon swung her right hand to the chains holding her left arm in place.

Click!

Her claws found the lock. Snowflake fell to the ground on her knees, a bit shaken but smiling widely at the triumph of freedom. She immediately got to Elora and started undoing the bounds that shackled Elora in place to the slave caravan. Her claws found the chains and quickly broke Elora's bounds.

"We better hurry up. Didn't Mortigon say that we were going to arrive at his-"

As if on cue, the caravan ceased movement. The ever familiar bumping and swaying motion that the captured Holders and their friends have gotten used to finally stopped. Snowflake and Elora, free from their bounds, froze in place as raw adrenaline pumped through their veins. Quickly, they shot back into their broken bounds and clicked the chains together in a way that wasn't noticeable.

"All right, you slaves. Time to get your sorry hides on your feet. The King of Desolation wants to show you your nice and cozy new homes in his castle." Muugara proclaimed as he opened the door and stepped inside, his clawless feet thudding against the hardwood floor. Snowflake's and Elora's hearts raced as the Muu Dragon pried them from the caravan and forced them on their feet. Just when Muugara was about to unlock the already broken chains that wrapped around Snowflake's wrists, a chain wrapped around his left foot and he fell to the ground. A resounding whump reverberated through the air.

"Whoops, sorry. I guess I wasn't looking where I was going." Ripto replied, watching Snowflake and Elora drop inconscipiously to the ground as he did so. Claws scraped against the floor as Muugara scrambled to get up onto his feet. Eyes ablaze with fury, he socked Ripto in the eye with his left hand and then hooked Snowflake and Elora's broken chains to the team of shackled prisoners. Their pulses quieted; the dragon didn't notice at all the breaks in his handiwork. In fact, after Ripto lashed out at him, Spyro saw it as a cue to draw even more attention away from Snowflake and Elora.

"So, Muugara. Does Laigon's castle have any room service? I can certainly go for a bite to eat, and I can tell that some of his cooks know how to cook steaks." Spyro shouted obnoxiously, heightening Muugara's anger as he did so. But before Muugara connect a fist into one of his eyes, the shackled prisoners all were filed out of the caravan to behold Mortigon's castle.

Jaws dropped as eyes beheld the almost frightening beauty of the castle that stood before them. It was a castle that had once been beautiful in a long ago age, but time had ripped it apart at the seams. Some parts of the castle looked to have been smashed by some giant's hand, where statues and various structures lay streamed all around the building. Nothing was symmetrical within the castle; it looked that each and every building brick was a different size and shape. It looked as delicate as a castle made out of playing cards, and yet, they could also tell that the building has survived for hundreds of years.

They only came back to their senses when Muugara yanked on the chains and ordered them to follow him. Snowflake and Elora sucked in horrified breaths in unison as they felt their chains come completely off their wrists. Immediately Airazor, who was chained to the front of the line, kicked Muugara square in the back.

'_Wow, everybody's suffering from blows just so that we could have a small fraction of freedom.' _Snowflake thought as she hooked on her broken chain around her wrists just as Mortigon's second in command started to yell at Airazor. At that moment, hope seemed to swell in her heart. They were imprisoned, but they were working together as a whole. Nothing could separate them, even long lines of shackles and an ever-oppressing reptile with wings barking insults at every one of them.

By the time they entered the castle and into a horribly slanting hallway filled with pictures, statues, and stained glass, Muugara was fed up with all of the slaves. Instead of leading them to the dungeons himself, he handed the chains to some lizardmen and commanded that they took Mortigon's valued guests into the dungeons. One of them was about to complain when the dragon assistant hurriedly stuffed gems into his claws. Suddenly the lizardmen seemed a lot more interested in the task and practically ran down the hallway with the chains in tow.

Elora and Snowflake saw this as the right time to break away from the group. As soon as Muugara rounded a corner, they noiselessly slipped out of their bonds and flattened themselves against the adjacent walls. The other prisoners made sure to make as much distractions as possible to keep the disappearance of two captives from being known. When the lizard and their friends disappeared around the corner and they were sure that the coast was clear, a great weight seemed to lift from their shoulders. They both slumped against the walls, laughing lightly and clearing the sweat beading from their foreheads.

"Well, now what?" Snowflake asked, her voice a whisper against the hallway. The strange thing about Mortigon's castle was that nothing echoed. Somehow, the way the building was built made none of their voices carry down the halls.

"We have to see what that monster-"

"Demon. Airazor insists that we call him a demon."

"Right, demon. We have to see what that monster wants with our children." Elora said, her green eyes constantly in search of any intruders. When they heard footsteps approached, the two women immediately darted behind a marble statue of a hideous dragon rampaging over a mountain ridge. Luck was on their side; the statue was big and wide enough for both of them to crouch behind.

"I think we have a pretty good idea from what Muugara, Spyro, and Airazor have told us. Mortigon wants to murder them to fulfill some prophecy to become the greatest person in the entire universe." Snowflake replied, her voice forced into a steady hiss.

"Yes, but I want to know is how." Elora retorted. There was an uneasy moment of nothing but the sound of their breathing as Snowflake registered that thought.

"How?"

"Yes, how. Why drag us, the family of the Gigas Holders, to another realm with the Gigas Crystals in hand, just to kill our children to fulfill a prophecy? If he only needed to kill them, he would've done so while he was still in Avalar. Something's fishy and I don't like it." Elora answered. Her eyes were riveted at one end of the hallway, with Snowflake watching the other end. The white dragon couldn't help but smile at the idea.

"Well, we got far enough as it is. While we're still taking in the breath of liberty, we might as well figure out what the hell is going on. I personally wanted to make a break for it-"

"And die out in the middle of a desert in some strange realm, prey to whatever the heck lives here." Elora cut into Snowflake's thought. The dragon blushed a little, realizing just what would happen if she dashed out of the castle in broad daylight. "Snowflake, I do believe the course of action we should take now involves research. And lots of it. You search for any document about this prophecy, I'm going to the source."

"To Mortigon's room? Elora, we're playing with our lives already..."

"Snowflake, don't you see? They're going to kill Pyran! If finding out just what that demon plans on doing with my son is worth risking my life, then so be it." And with that, the conversation was over. Any attempts to change Elora's mind were wasted, for as soon as the coast was determined clear, Elora marched down one end of the hall and Snowflake marched down the other.

Elora didn't run into any trouble as she walked through the castle and winded down the seemingly endless cascade of hallways. It seemed like the entire castle was devoid of guards. It confused her until she took a look out of one of the stain glass windows and found out why Mortigon didn't keep any guards around; all the guards were either in the courtyard training or guarding the extensive collection of prisoners and slaves. The lion serpent felt no need to have guards marching down the hallways; he was confident enough to believe that nothing would ever oppose him.

She walked for a good twenty minutes down random hallways, ever alert of the telltale signs of approaching guards and trying to keep her cloven hooves from making too much of a racket, before she heard familiar voices coming from down one hallway. When she entered the hall, she was presented with a door more adorned and much larger than any of the other doors she passed. Elora pressed her hands gently on the beautifully carved wooden frame and slowly pushed the door open until the crack was big enough to see and to hear what was going on.

"...Last seen around the area where your brother was stationed, Muugara. Lucky for your good-for-nothing sibling, some gargoyles escaped the attack. From what we know from Telemnar and Amandil, the brats have teamed up with the monster known as Gnasty Gnorc."

Elora stifled a gasp when her eyes fell upon Mortigon. The lion serpent was sitting casually in a throne that looked to be made out of the carcass of a giant dragon. The seat in which the King of Desolation draped himself over was made out of the skeleton's leg bones, with a few satin pillows colored red thrown across them for good measure. Carried by the jaws of the deceased dragon a detailed tapestry of Mortigon's "liberation" of the Muu Dragons, which, in morbidly beautiful detail, depicted a scimitar-carrying monster standing among a flood of dying dragons. The wing bones of the dragon, which still bore the tattered remains of rotting brown membrane, bore the markings of Mortigon's regime.

"Freeing Gnasty Gnorc and letting him slaughter every Muu Dragon in the camp. Those little punks are cleverer than we made them out as. If I ever get my hands on one of them..."

Muugara hissed and flicked his wings irritatedly as he adjusted the same glove he used to defeat Airazor at the dinner party he had crashed alongside his master. With the dexterity of a master craftsman, he slipped several devices onto his right arm that looked a lot like wrist watches, only with screens and buttons that Elora couldn't tell from her point of perspective. He then attached what looked to be miniature versions of the cannons that Gulp often toted around when he was needed for attack. Elora knew what Muugara was preparing himself for even before Mortigon stated it out loud.

"You will get your hands on them. And since you know where they are and where they're heading for, you can be sure to pay them a nice little visit. We can't let our little hybrids get too bored on their mission for their mommies and daddies." Mortigon crooned in a relaxed tone, a tone that seemed almost more threatening than his venomous shouts.

"What happens if my attacks kill them, King of Desolation?"

"You're giving yourself too much credit, Muugara. We're talking about six brats that have lived this long in my realms without losing a single of their numbers, plus they managed to get through a Muu Dragon camp without suffering any losses. The moment you kill them is the moment that blood-flavored pudding starts raining out of the sky and the ground starts sprouting posies." Mortigon replied as if it were fact. A bit of Muugara's ego deflated right then and there; his claws shuffled against the ground sheepishly as he avoided Mortigon's gaze.

"Think I should take a portal? The flight's extremely long and I want to surprise them." The Muu Dragon found a way to change the subject. The change of topic didn't make his lord and master any less irritated, for he yelled a sharp reply that reverberated in Elora's bones.

"Of course you're taking the portal, you bone-headed piece of crap! Even you can't fly that long distance in such a short amount of time!" And then immediately the self-proclaimed King of Desolation was on his feet. Muugara whimpered and bowed his head, but he didn't expect Mortigon to grab him by the neck and forcibly drag him to a console that, up until now, Elora thought was a golden vanity desk without any glass for the mirror. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that it was a Teleportal, a portal that could, if you entered the right coordinates, could open a portal in practically any place. With one hand Mortigon pressed a few buttons, and with the other he held his lackey.

"Sir, please! I can do it my-" Muugara didn't finish his statement. As soon as the machine was booted on, his voice was drowned out by the sound of the whirling of the gears and electricity crackling around the machine. The golden ring that was hooked in place above the console, the so-called glassless mirror above the vanity desk, started to turn so fast that it became a blur. There was a sound like fabric ripping, and soon there was a portal, glimmering within the ring like a film of bubbles.

Without another word, Mortigon heaved Muugara into the portal and didn't even blink when his departure caused a bright flash of light. The console silenced itself immediately and Mortigon, his eyes red with fury and his very stance bristling with irritation, decided to pester another one of his lackeys who, up until now, Elora didn't realize he was in the room. ****

"You! Scientist!" Mortigon hissed, stomping his foot on the tiled floor as he did so. A small bundle of scales that Elora assumed was a dead skin with a white cloth draped over it immediately sprang to its feet. An Artisan's dragon with dull brown scales, black spikes running down his spine, lime green membrane, and bloodshot brown eyes scurried to his call, his lab coat trailing behind him as he did so. Elora froze when the dragon passed inches away from her, but in his hurry, he didn't seem to notice the brown-furred faun. The scientist dragon shuffled his feet and gave a hesitant cough.

"The name's Vincent. If you want to refer to me as a name, you'd better-"

The dragon was cut off when a muscular yellow hand wrapped around his neck and cut off all access to his lungs. He coughed and struggled as he was lifted from his feet and was eye-level with Mortigon.

"You do realize that your life is as meaningless as the specks of dirt that the wind blows in my castle every morning. Start throwing your weight around here, and I will be forced to crack your head like a freshly laid egg." Mortigon snarled, his eyes boring into Vincent's. Elora pressed herself so hard against the wall in hopes of becoming less visible as the dragon desperately clawed against Mortigon's grip.

"But I am worth something. I'm the only one that can power the Dimens-aaaaagh!" Before the scientist could finish, Mortigon tossed him in the direction of the wall, delighting in hearing one of his legs break against the impact. Tears spilled from the creature's eyes as he nursed his broken leg. A scimitar point buried itself into his foot to prevent him from crawling away.

"Wrong there, genius. You set it up, I'm the one that powers it. Not even you can give it the energy it needs. And believe me, any more smart talking, and I will be forced to take...drastic measures." Mortigon said with a smile, genuine and sinister in its own right. Elora felt her heart fill with pity as the dragon whimpered and blubbered, resembling much like a five-year old who was caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.

"Please...don't kill me..." he pleaded, his face coated with tears. Mortigon slapped him across the face to silence the whines and whimpers from him immediately.

"Kill you? No...I can think of much better punishments for you!" the lion serpent hissed, his scimitar pointed at Vincent's throat. Magic sparkled around Mortigon's yellow and brown-striped body as he stood there, grinning at his scientist. Vincent sat up straight and remained perfectly silent as Mortigon gave him orders.

"You set up the equipment and make sure it's running perfectly, or else you'll be in the same boat as the batteries I've stolen. I've waited twenty years for this moment, and if you even think about screwing it up, well, let's just say that you'll be begging for me to kill you." Mortigon replied with a sneer. Vincent swallowed the bile that was rising to his throat. "Understood?"

Vincent nodded vigorously. "Good. Now get your sorry carcass to work!" Mortigon shouted to him, resulting in the dragon to scurry into a corner to collect his things.

Elora was shocked. Mortigon had a dragon of Spyro's species working for him. Her mind tried to work out the meaning of what Mortigon had said. He needed a scientist in order to work on something called the Dimens-something, and he threatened Vincent with a mention to the batteries. The Gigas Crystals? But why would a dragon be threatened with the idea that he'd placed into a machine that ran on Gigas Crystals...

The faun didn't realize that her presence was discovered until the flat of a sword hit her square against the back of her head and she crumpled to the floor, the world fading into a mesh of swirling colors...

---------------------

Torin was shaken out of his slumber when he heard a loud thump near the front of a cave, followed by some rather venomous cursing combined with a somewhat-familiar chuckling. His vision blurred by sleepiness, the only sense that told him what was going on was his sense of hearing.

"Just turn him into a shiny already, Gnasty! He's a loudmouth when he's alive!"

"Unhand me, you monsters!"

"Look who's calling who a monster, Brandimuu."

Torin rubbed his eyes and slowly the details faded into view. He was the only one awake, and from the looks of it, Gnasty Gnorc was keeping captive a Muu Dragon that was littered with scars and bruises. Brandimuu, his former captor, struggled and hissed against the bonds. The Muu Dragon was wrapped around the same stake that held Gnasty back at the camp, ropes restricting most of his movement save for his head and neck. Sitting on his head was Kannica, who was currently holding two scimitars made out of green crystal. When the riptgon recognized who the gargoyle was, he shouted loud enough to rouse the rest of his friends from his sleep.

"Hey, it's that sword stealer!"

"My name's Kannica. If you want to refer to me as any sort of title, The Best Thief in the Universe would also do." Kannica replied with a mocking bow. Pyran took one look at her and then immediately sprang to his feet, his sword in hand. The gargoyle would've been cut clean off of Brandimuu's ears had not Gnasty stepped in beforehand.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. She doesn't deserve to be killed." Gnasty replied. When Pyran gave him a look of disbelief, the gnorc decided to explain. "Consider her a hero. If it wasn't for the fact that that gargoyle stole your sword and led you to the Muu Dragon camp that held me captive. One would say that the situation was almost staged, but I say Fate had a hand in bringing us together." The old enemy of Spyro was considering the possibility of what the hybrids would do if they found out that their "chance meeting" was on purpose and that was the only reason Kannica took his sword, but from the looks of it, none of them were any the wiser.

"Yeah, Fate. Right. But she still took my sword!" Pyran yelled.

"Pyran, you still have your sword. Why not keep that ego restrained and let the little gargoyle live?" Glacier replied. She reached her hand to tickle Kannica's tummy, but the little winged beast replied to this action by snapping her fangs close enough to the riptgon's fingers to make her draw back in fright.

"I ain't no house pet, you freak. I'm just here for my shinies...but I'm sticking around to see this little piggy be tortured."

"No, not tortured. Interrogated." Gnasty corrected her, leaning against his club as he did so. Kannica shrugged, since interrogation sounded a lot like a fancy word for torture, and continued to watch the Muu Dragon from her spot on a large rock in the cave. He looked Brandimuu square in the eyes and smiled when the blue eyes that stared back showed no mercy. "It'll be interesting."

"Interesting? Not likely. Mortigon will kill you for this." Brandimuu growled. He fought with all of his strength against his bounds, only to appear as some sort of cruel entertainment for the six awake hybrids, the large armored gnorc, and the clapping gargoyle. Gnasty sneered at the form of cruel irony, but he had to ask the jerk a few questions.

"Brandimuu, I want to know how to destroy The Queen. I'd figured you of all people would know some weak spots!" Gnasty replied, flexing his hands as if picturing The Queen's throat inside of them. Brandimuu threw his head back and laughed, a cruel mocking sound that made some of the smaller kids cringe.

"You want to kill something that's been living for thousands of years? You? By yourself? You'd have better luck against The King of Desolation himself!" Brandimuu laughed, his slender but muscular frame shaking against the ropes.

"I won't be by myself. I have a whole team of fighters to help me kill the leader of the Desolation Gnorcs, so don't even think about pulling that on me." Gnasty retorted. He received strange gazes from some of the hybrids, most of all Glacier and Karydor, who were somewhat terrified at the odds against them, but Pyran seemed quite cheerful that the gnorc was including him on the action.

"Go ahead, risk your life. I won't care. I probably won't live long enough to see you..." Brandimuu stopped to count all of his captors. It took him a while; arithmetic was never his strong suit. "...eight get killed so shamelessly. The Queen will bathe in your blood just like she did to your army of weak and pathetic gnorcs."

Brandimuu had pulled the wrong strings in terms of conversation, for Gnasty immediately seized the Muu Dragon's skull with one of his hands. For a few seconds, the heroes all feared that Gnasty Gnorc was going to squeeze Brandimuu's brains out, but instead he hissed very harshly into his ear as he fought to keep his temper in check.

"Just tell me of any weak spots before I split your head open!"

The Muu Dragon, for the first time in his life, feared something besides The Queen or Mortigon. He gazed into Gnasty's brown eyes, tears brimming in his large blue eyes at the pain surging through his head.

"She's weak against any sort of fire magic! She's coated head to toe in fur, so I suspect your minds can put two and two together! That's all I know! Honest!" Brandimuu pleaded. Gnasty couldn't help but feel the sting of malicious glee to hear his former captor begging for mercy.

"Thanks for the info, Brandimuu. Be sure to tell Mortigon or whatever his name is that we stopped by." Gnasty replied. The comment immediately changed the Muu Dragon's mood, from pleading to absolutely hysterical. His eyes swept the small cave the group of heroes were currently sheltering in as if Mortigon was going to spring out of the shadows at any moment.

"No! I can't reveal my failure to Mortigon! He'll torture me! He'll send my soul to Hell! He has many punishments for people like me!"

And with a jerk of his arms, Brandimuu freed one of his arms from the ropes. He pointed the pink blades that adorned the wrists of every Muu Dragon to his neck, his eyes staring down at all of his captors in craziness. He gave a barking laugh as if understanding a hilarious joke.

"And I'm not going to let any of them happen!"

And with a quick movement of his arm, Brandimuu slit his own throat with his claws and died in front of his captors.

An eerie silence filled the cave, with the sound of Karydor weeping into Pyran's shoulder prevalent. Gnasty Gnorc felt the need to bottle up some of the blood into a canteen that he was wearing around his belt. It may be only useful after three days, but the gnorc planned on fighting a certain enemy in his life before it expired. ****

"Kannica, I want you to lead us to The Queen." Gnasty Gnorc asked. The little gargoyle had already stored the three statues of her last deed in a crack in the cave, marking the spot with a rune so that she can return to her prizes later. She looked up from her task, her red eyes glimmering with greed.

"Five more shinies and I'll do it. Sure, the walk's short; only about three hours, but The Queen doesn't really stand my company well..." Kannica replied hesitantly, not choosing to relate the time she thought it would be funny to shave her name into the fur in-between The Queen's ears. Vendea still hated her for that encounter, and chances are, she was going to get an earful from both monster and gargoyle.

"No, three. My price is three emerald statues." Gnasty insisted.

"Four."

"You can have Brandimuu as a statue then." And with those words, Gnasty Gnorc crystallized the dead Muu Dragon. His position and blood crystallized too, revealing a rather creepy statue of an emerald dragon with a gaping hole in its neck and with emerald blood crystallized around its claws. When Karydor saw the statue, she fought to keep herself from vomiting.

"Ooooo...Grotesque and violent." The group of hybrids and Gnasty then waited as Kannica dragged Brandimuu's crystallized corpse to the spot where she hid her other three statues. She cast another tracking spell on the spot and then turned to the group.

"Okay, I'll take your offer. But we'd better leave immediately; the walk's a bit tedious and we don't want to be out when the desert sun reaches its afternoon position."

Within twenty minutes, the cave that was nestled near the destroyed Muu Dragon Camp was empty, the only signs of nine creatures ever dwelling there being the four glittering statues lodged inconspicuously from scouting eyes. Nothing could move them from their spot except for Kannica, and no one bothered to, since the statue that happened to be sticking out was Brandimuu, his lifeless green-tinted eyes staring vacantly at the world around him.

Had Brandimuu been alive, he would've seen six hybrids, most of them with dragon wings on their backs, crawl out of the cave entrance and follow a gnorc and a travelling gargoyle partner towards the now nearing mountain range, eagerly awaiting the chance they would get to battle a large winged monster whose only name was a title fit for royalty. ****

---------------------

"Here it is. The Queen's lair."

Kannica flitted in the air and landed on a rock just outside the entrance. She tapped her foot impatiently on her perch as the group she was leading was too busy gazing at the cave in wonder. The opening resembled the stony jaw of a great yawning beast, emitting horrible smells and sounds from its maw as it sat on its haunches in front of them. Giant strings of moss fluttered in the breeze, giving the cave the impression that it was armed with rows of stale green teeth.

"You sure this is where The Queen lives?" Pyran asked hesitantly. He was losing all of his pride in fighting and saving since, for the first time in his life, he knew just what happened in battle. He had the healed bones to prove it. Kannica, however, did not give the dragon/faun hybrid any sort of leeway as she sat on the rock, filing her claws casually.

"Yep."

"Positive?"

"Definitely possible."

"Really, really, absolutely-"

"Listen, hero-boy. You want to be like your father? Go attack some giant green thing in a cave and then shout 'You're toast!'! Stop whimpering at the gate like a sissy!" Kannica, obviously fed up with the hesitant hero, shouted. Pyran remain rooted to his spot in fear, but it took the kind and caring shove in the back by Karydor to get him moving.

With Kannica leading the way, the children brought here by both Fate and a thieving serpent, and a gnorc that was once and probably still was the enemy of the Dragon Realms, marched into the cave's gaping maw. It wasn't long before the noon sun behind them became nothing more than a glowing little dot, all but completely swallowed in the damp darkness that consumed the cave. Most of the children were frightened by the cave, especially Glacier. The little dragon/riptoc hybrid would jump at every other sound and swear that there was something crawling around on the ceiling.

"Hey, Gnasty." Pyran started when the opening of the cave disappeared into a sea of black and Glacier had to create a fireball in her hands for them to be able to see. When the gnorc turned to look at him, the draun finished his reply uneasily. "Did you ever live in a cave like this?"

Gnasty knew why the kid was asking and laughed. Glacier screamed beside them as the laugh echoed off the cave walls and made something skitter near her feet. "You know, it does parallel with your father, I guess. You're going to fight a giant green gnorc leader in a cave! That's rich." And then suddenly, his mood changed. With the small fire's light reflecting off his grim face as he clenched his club tightly in one of his hands, he looked almost like something out of a horror movie.

"Course, this gnorc won't survive for another go."

The rest of the trip continued on without any conversation save for Glacier's pleas to go the other way and leave the cave. When her complaints went unheeded by everyone, Calub decided to have a little fun and bounced a few stones off her shoulder blades. This immediately caused the little winged reptile to scream and jump onto Gnasty's shoulder to keep away from the creepy crawlies.

A piercing scream sliced the silence once again. Torin stomped his foot in irritation. "Glacier! We're not leaving this cave until we defeat The Queen! Quit screaming!"

"That wasn't Glacier." Harmony replied. An eerie silence filled the air, only to be broken again by another ear-piercing shriek. A shiver traveled down Torin's spine when he realized that those screams were not far off and that they were coming from a full-grown male. Probably being tortured, from the amount of pain within each cry of terror. Gnasty's ears twitched when he realized that those calls were familiar.

"That's Red!" And soon the gnorc was racing down the cave, Glacier and her tiny ball of fire bobbing on his shoulder as he raced. Kannica, for the first time realizing that she was no longer in the front, raced after Gnasty. The other hybrids had no choice but to follow, lest they be left behind in pitch-black darkness.

A light began to glow at the other end of the cave, and when Gnasty entered it, the long cave passageway became a large circular dome-shaped room big enough to comfortably fit the entire castle in Autumn Plains in. The only source of light came from the giant hole in the ceiling, which gleamed an orange-tinted light down upon the inhabitants of the cave. As soon as Gnasty entered the room, he froze when his eyes made contact with The Queen's. She smiled sinisterly as she flexed her muscles on her bed of wet and bloody gnorc skulls. When Gnasty Gnorc beheld her bed of his troops, he screamed in rage.

"Ah, see there now, Crimson Jutjaw? You have guests!" Vendea replied, pointing to the just-arriving hybrids. Red could only pant in reply as he felt every ounce of power drain out of his body. The torturing Vendea had supplied him had tired him out. The burnt flesh on his chest, caused by Vendea's taser, didn't help matters as he turned his head to look at six hybrids, a gnorc that looked somewhat familiar, and a flying gargoyle. Red made a mental note to make the gargoyle species extinct before he passed out.

"Kannica? What are you doing hanging out with slime-skidding lizardbellies like these creatures that stand before you?" Vendea exclaimed. She was answered by a blast of Gnasty's club that turned her into a green statue. Before the gargoyle statue could shatter, Kannica swooped down from the air and caught it. Kannica couldn't help but grin at a shiny already won, but it somewhat creeped her out to own a statue that used to be one of her buddies.

"_Ah, I knew you were my equal, Dragon Realms Gnorc._"

The voice echoed through the cave, a terrifying howl that echoed through all of their bones. But only Gnasty could understand her. With a trembling hand, he instructed Glacier, Pyran, and Karydor to stand beside him and for Harmony, Torin, and Calub to help Red. The hybrids immediately acted on his instructions without any words or complaints. The two woltocs and the son of Ripto found it easy to climb to where Red was; since the entire wall was coated in a sticky substance. Pyran, Karydor, and Glacier all withdrew their weapons as the winged monster inched closer.

"_How predictable you are, Dragon Realms Gnorc. My equal may be able to speak the Universal Language, but he still will always fall to the faults that plague your weak and pathetic species._" The Queen spoke in a language that was filled with howling, snarling, and savage growls, and yet Gnasty understood every word. His grip tightened on his club, and with a holler, he threw himself at the monster.

_CLANG!_

Claws met metal as The Queen lunged at her prey. She pinned Gnasty Gnorc to the rock cave and scraped him against the floor. Bones and skeletons yielded to the two green monsters locked in combat.

"_Prepare to die!_"

The shout came out as a savage roar to the ears of the hybrids and to the gargoyle watching from the safety of the room's entrance. And yet they could understand the meaning well enough. The Queen snapped at Gnasty Gnorc with her mouth full of blood-stained fangs, but instead of crunching down on his face, she chomped down on enchanted wood. The gnorc pushed against his club with both of his hands, forcing the monster backwards. Saliva and old blood dripped on the cave floor as The Queen remained her grip on Gnasty's club with her mouth and began to slash at Gnasty's legs with her winged claws.

"Karydor!" Pyran called to the winged rhynoc beside him, his sword outstretched. While The Queen was distracted with her main target, Karydor cast a spell on Pyran's sword. The faun-forged metal glimmered with a bright light of its own as the magic-user chanted spells of fire to be temporarily infused in the metal. With a grin, the draun hacked against The Queen's legs and caused fire to burn the wounds he created.

**"_KEEEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"_**

Gnasty momentarily forgotten, The Queen turned around and slashed at the air with her giant claws. She would've sliced Pyran's head clear off his shoulders if it wasn't for Glacier. A white blur darted through the air, distracting the monstrous winged gnorc and saving her friend's neck at the same time. Pyran was instead swept off his feet by The Queen's lashing tail, his back connecting against the hard stone floor and driving the wind out of his lungs. The monster began to scratch at empty air, wailing in confusion and frustration.

Her frustration grew when a great fireball of flame hit her right in the face.

"Yee-hah!" Glacier cried when she landed on The Queen's head and grappled to her long green hair. The spirit of battle pumping through her veins, the little white hybrid used her brother's scepter to set fire to a large area on The Queen's back. Fueled by all the creepy-crawlies that had nestled in the monster's fur, the creature burst into flames. However, instead of giving up, The Queen only laughed in a feral matter and launched herself backwards into a cave wall. Glacier jumped off before her body could be crushed by the impact. All the fires she had created were put out in an instant.

"_You're really going to have to do better than that, Dragon Realms Gnorc. Instead of letting your little hybrid friends help you._" The Queen hissed, her body dripping with burnt fur and her own blood. She crawled viciously towards Gnasty Gnorc, who was leaning against a boulder for support. His legs were scratched up so badly that his bones were showing through some of the cuts. With a grunt, he heaved himself onto his feet and flinched at the pain. He nodded almost in agreement and he met The Queen's lunge with his club, although one could tell that he wasn't going to last long underneath her blows.

"Harmony! We got to help Gnasty!" Calub called. The three hybrids not involved in the fight were now level with Red in his place in the wall. Several feet up from the air, they all knew that one slipup would be fatal. But luckily, the blood and saliva mixture that pinned Red to the wall was sticky enough for them to have no worries about slipping off.

"We'll help him by freeing Red." Harmony replied. Her paws began to tear at the bounds around Red's arms. She turned to Torin, who was currently examining the dragon's wounds. "Torin, you got to pump some life into this dragon. He's useless unconscious like this!"

Torin nodded in agreement, and with a few arcane words, the son of Ripto placed his hand on Red's chest and began to feed magic of healing into the dragon's body. Wounds began to heal, energy began to return, and bones began to mend. Torin couldn't exactly restore the dragon to full health, since that would mean that Red would absorb all of Torin's energy, but it was enough to get the dragon going. Red's eyes fluttered open and focused on Torin's face.

"Ripto?"

"Close enough. Red, you got to help Gnasty!" Torin shouted. With a sickly wet ripping sound, Red pulled himself from the wall. His wings flapped in the air, still wet with what The Queen had imprisoned him with. His yellow eyes ablaze with fury, the dragon used up all of the energy that Torin had restored him with to expel a blast of fire breath.

**__**

FWOOSH!

As soon as Red's massive flames connected with The Queen's body, Glacier and Karydor helped by casting all the fire magic they could muster. Pyran helped as well by expelling all the fire breath he could create.

The resulting maelstrom of heat seemed to consume the entire body of The Queen. The cave became so hot that Kannica darted into the cave passageway to keep cool and the sticky wall of blood and saliva melted. Harmony and Torin slid off the wall without a problem, but Calub got entangled in the dried-up husk of a dead gnorc. His scream of terror could not match The Queen's howl of pain, her red eyes barely glinting through the fire in which she was trapped by.

And it was over just like that. The fire died out and the four casters of it collapsed from exhaustion. Red's wings crumpled against his body and he fell to the cave floor. Karydor and Pyran both fell against each other, their bodies tired and wasted. Glacier shouted another cry of joy before she too fell back gasping for air.

"_Well...done..."_

The Queen's fur had come completely off, and all that remained was black scorched skin. Her eyes, still wet with tears of pain, gazed into Gnasty's pain-stricken eyes. She pulled herself to her feet and swished her rat-like tail in an almost puppy-like manner.

"_You've shown that you have enough friends to defeat me. However, the next time you see me, we fight alone._"

And with a quick movement of her wings, The Queen launched herself through the hole in the roof and disappeared into the sky. Gnasty didn't care that his target escaped alive; instead, he smiled in prideful joy as he slowly wiped his own blood from his armor and from his hands. He then slowly limped to where Red was resting.****

"Gnasty, thank the Dragon Elders that you came in time." Red replied, his breath raspy and short. He reached out a quivering hand to his comrade for support, only to be rammed against the cave wall. Yellow eyes widened in surprise at the sudden change in Gnasty's emotions. The gnorc glared at Red with such hatred, the opposite of his prideful happiness just a few moments ago, that it almost frightened him.

"Gnasty...What are you-" his voice was cut off when Gnasty grabbed both ends of his club and rammed the blunt of it against Red's throat, cutting all air circulation. The dragon weakly struggled, his body weakened by what Vendea and The Queen had done prior to his rescue. Normally, he would've been a match for his partner. Now, with all of his strength gone and his source of magic still in possession of Muugara, the dragon sunk to his knees in weakness.****

"Listen here, Red. It's because of you that I'm stuck here in this godforsaken wasteland with the memory of an entire army of gnorcs being shredded to pieces by a cloud of flying monsters. The only reason those gnorcs died is because you had to get your staff back. Give me one reason why I shouldn't honor the fallen lives of my troops by killing the very thing that got them killed?"

"...Because killing him will not make you any better."

Gnasty turned his head and found himself staring at Torin and his sister Glacier. The daughter of Ripto was still clutching a glowing scepter in her hands, a good memory of her battle with the monstrous winged creature alongside the gnorc. Torin's hands were still coated with the sticky red ooze that The Queen had plastered Red with to the wall.

"Gnasty, let him go. Crushing his lungs is not going to bring all those gnorcs back. If you kill Red, are you any different from The Queen? The only reason you're not her equal is because you think with reason and don't kill needlessly. Remember the battle you had with her? Besides, Red helped save your life, so he deserves to stay alive...if not for a little while longer."

Torin's words seemed to connect. With an exhausted sigh, Gnasty Gnorc removed his club from Red's neck and let the dragon breathe. Red rubbed his neck slowly, his eyes looking at the gnorc warily but at the same time seeming to understand. With a yawn, the dragon leaned back against the cave wall and fell asleep, the blows Vendea and The Queen inflicted upon him taking its toll on his body once more. Gnasty then took the cue to do the same, wrapping his injured legs with some bandages provided by Karydor before also taking an energy-restoring nap.

Pyran couldn't help but gape at the scene unfolding in front of him. Here he was, standing in a cave after helping defeat a giant winged gnorc, and yet he was considering two of the biggest enemies that his father Spyro had ever fought against as friends.

'_There's enough irony on this trip to kill someone.'_ Pyran thought to himself as he joined the circle his friends made to rest up against the weariness of the battle he had just fought.

And soon, the cave became filled with not the screams of a Desolation Gnorc's victims, but instead the pleasant chatter of six children and a gargoyle resting next to the sleeping forms of two of Spyro's biggest enemies, their innocent demeanor and their friendship shared amongst one another never faltering against the blows they have received on their quest.  
****

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End of Chapter Five

Gnasty Gnorc and Red's relationship is not based on anything that I've written in the past (especially not that one-shot), but rather from events that took place in A Hero's Tail.

If you made suggestions in a review, do not fret. I'll take your kind words to heart and use some of your ideas in later chapters. Just be patient.


	6. Desperate Motivations

**Desperate Motivations  
Rating: PG  
Author's Notes: Yes, I'm well aware that this is late. Veeery late. Like, about, three months late. You try coming up with a plot while you have a heavy artist's block over the summer, and then later get admitted into AP classes. Not only that, the whole stress of some people abusing the review system really brought me down. XP**

**But okay, I didn't forget this. Will SOME people stop spreading rumors about how I ran off to write Oracle of Shadows? I cancelled that fic (partly because I completely lost interest with Rayman, and partly because the plot ran itself into the ground.), and I'm working on this one. I just joking that one time.**

**---------------**

"So, the thief that gave you this map is called Fishtail, eh? Interesting name...for a thief."

A few hours after the tiring battle against The Queen, Red found enough strength to speak. The sun that had once glowed serenely out of the large hole that engulfed the ceiling of the cave was now slowly sinking into the west, sending warm, golden hues into the cave and dying everything with a rich color. Pyran had started a conversation with Red, partly to explain why the son of Spyro had saved the greatest scourge of the Realms, and partly because he was completely bored out of his mind. He figured that, since Red was more or less a new member of his small heroic group, he might as well fill him in on what had happened so far.

"Although that does sound familiar. Isn't she the Lion Serpent that leads a group of thieves that guards the entrance? I'm pretty sure I heard some of the gnorc troops talking about having their best heirlooms stolen." Red stated plainly as he fiddled with the map in his hands. Already he was figuring out exactly how far he had to go in order to meet this "Mortigon" that, apparently, was the brains behind the bat-like gnorcs that destroyed his army.

"It wasn't their heirlooms; it was their weapons and armor. Half the army wanted to go back home because they were lacking proper equipment. Course, what do I know? My suggestions, no matter how life-saving, mean nothing compared to a staff adorned with Dark Gems. That really says something about your priorities, Red." Gnasty Gnorc hissed from his spot in the cave. His back was resting against a solid rock wall, and despite the serious damage that The Queen had caused during the fight, he still had strength to come up with comebacks while treating his wound. It was almost macabre to see the gnorc sitting casually as blood trickled out of the various wounds.

Red opened his mouth to make an equally snappy comeback, but he immediately closed it. He lacked the energy to start a fight with the gnorc, and he just wasn't in the mood to say anything cruel. Instead, he settled with weakly tossing a rock in Gnasty Gnorc's direction, not caring at all when the rock clattered a few feet away from his target.

"Will you just let that go, Gnorc? They're dead and there's nothing we can do."

"Gnasty Gnorc, please. Call me by that, while we're still on friendly terms. After all, I did just save your live from a giant green monster with wings. You should count your blessings, especially since I'm almost ready to tear your wings out of your sockets, you spoiled excuse for a dragon." As soon as he said those words, Gnasty Gnorc knew that it was nothing more than an empty threat. He barely had enough energy to move his arms, let alone walk up to where Red was sitting.

Still, this small exchange of words concerned Calub. He had to destroy this rivalry before they killed each other when their strength returned. It was amusing to watch, he had to admit, but it was delaying their rescue of their parents. The little woltoc decided to take matters into his own hands; he climbed onto the highest rock in the cavern and shouted to his friends seated in the cave.

"Guys. As much as I want to talk about tearing Red wings out, we need to think more seriously here. We're a small group of six Avalarian children, plus a gargoyle, a gnorc, and a fallen Dragon Elder. The Queen got away, probably to report to her master what happened. For all we know, Mortigon knows exactly where we are and is planning his next move. If we don't stop fighting, we're not going to have a snowball's chance in Magma Cone against him. We've got to stick together!"

His speech had the opposite effect than what he intended. Red's eyes lit up with amusement as he chuckled coldly at Calub. His laughter bounced off the walls of The Queen's lair, adding an almost spectral effect to his laughter. His ambition shattered, Calub disheartenly slid down the rock perch as Red mocked his efforts to lighten his mood.

"Well, aren't you a cutie? Not even a teenager and already he's leading a troop against an evil menace. How sweet." Red replied with a voice full of fake sincerity. When Harmony shot him a venomous glare, he only chuckled some more to himself. "As much as I'd like to be included in your merry band of heroes, I'm going to have to decline. As an evildoer, I know that large groups of heroic people, especially if most of the members are below the age of 20, attract more danger and attract more thugs. You're going to step outside of this cave and be swarmed by cronies sent by Mortigon. Happens every time."

Red stood up, paused to flex his wings, and began to stroll towards the entrance of the cave. His sharp claws clicked against the floor of the cave as he left the 'merry band of heroes' behind.

"If anyone needs me, I'll be busy avoiding death by exiting to the nearest portal out of here."

Red took a few steps, but immediately jumped back. The end of Gnasty's club crashed into the floor just inches from his right foot claw. Gnasty stepped in front of Red and folded his arms casually around his bloodstained armor. Despite the grisly look about him and the fact that his strength had imbedded his club a few inches deep in solid stone, he had a very calm tone to his voice as he addressed the dragon in front of him.

"No can do, Red. We're stranded. Unless you can trek across a desert for a few weeks by yourself, be my guest. Especially since _we're_ not sharing any of our rations and _you_ don't have a map."

"I'm Red the Fallen Dragon Elder! I can survive a desert with or without your maps or rations!"

"You seem to be forgetting exactly how fast those Desolation Gnorcs defeated you, and you had an army with carts laden with food backing you up. Out there, you'll be all by yourself. Maybe you'll get lucky and some Muu Dragon camp will adopt you and make you into their loyal slave, or maybe you'll die of thirst before the next sandstorm. No skin off our bones, but it'll be some skin off your bones once the vultures find your sun-soaked carcass."

Red stood there, staring banefully at Gnasty Gnorc. He tried to look as dignified as possible, but judging from the giggles rising from both the six hybrid children and that insufferable gargoyle, he wasn't succeeding.

"You...bring up a very valid point." Red agreed at last. Gnasty Gnorc's gaze never left him, and judging from the silence he was receiving from the other creatures in the cave, more than one pairs of eyes were watching him. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of being examined by hateful stares, Red slammed his foot on the ground and balled his hands into fists. "Okay, fine. If dying in the desert is worse than dying while fighting some crazed maniac with some powerful crystals, then I might as well pal around. But don't expect me to like it."

Red added the last sentence under his breath, but the others knew exactly what he was thinking.

"We don't expect you to do anything except follow us and Kannica, who will be leading the way to Mortigon's Palace." Gnasty Gnorc replied. He reached down to pull out his club out of the ground. Kannica, happy to hear her name mentioned, burst into a singsong voice as she repeated what Gnasty Gnorc had said about her.

"Yeah, follow us and Kannica, who will be-HEY!" Her brain finally figured out exactly what Gnasty Gnorc had intended for her. With an indignant flap of her wings, she took to the air and flew over to where Gnasty Gnorc was standing. In midair, she glowered at the green monster as he casually brushed the dirt off his weapon.

"Why are you involving me? I said I was going to lead you to The Queen, not to Mortigon himself!" Kannica shouted. Gnasty Gnorc, knowing exactly how to win Kannica's trust, immediately tried to figure out exactly how many creatures he had to crystallize in order to get his little tour guide to help.

"Okay, what's your price?"

"Nothing! All the shinies in the world would not convince me to go up against him! There's a reason we gargoyles work for him, and not because we feel like helping. That guy has more power in his little claw than both you and Jutjaw have in your entire bodies!" Kannica hissed. She paused to rest her wings on the tallest perch in the cave, which happened to be Red's horns, much to the dragon's chagrin. When she wrapped her wings around her green-tinted body, Gnasty Gnorc thought of an idea to get Kannica to perform the dangerous deed of leading them to Mortigon.

"Okay, I see. I understand that you're too afraid to do it. It is, after all, a job only people bigger than potatoes can complete. If I was your size, I'd be chicken too."

Kannica's body tensed when the gnorc's words hit a sensitive spot on her nerves. The hybrids, seeing exactly what kind of trick the gnorc was playing, decided to add insult to injury by giggling and saying similar things to her. When Pyran shouted "Do you want some Aloe Vera for that BURN?" in her direction, she launched herself into the air and flew back to where Gnasty Gnorc was standing.

"...Fifty statues." She said through gritted teeth.

"My, my. Quite a steep sum."

"Mark my words, Gnorc. Any smaller of a number, and my brain will overpower my pride and I'll refuse to do this." Kannica growled. She hung in the air, seemingly defeated by her own avarice and pride, but already her mind was thinking about all the things she could do with more than fifty emerald shinies. Her mind wandered back to Brandimuu, who was still waiting in a cave in the desert, just waiting to be prided over. Her shinies were her pride and joy; she might as well make this trip worthwhile.

"Okay then. Fifty. Mortigon's got a lot of troops anyways. I might as well have a little fun while I'm on this trip."

Gnasty Gnorc walked over to where the rest of the group was, Kannica perched on his helmet. The group sat down, gazing at the map. Already, Karydor had taken the liberty of drawing the path that they took on the map in pencil. She circled the spot where they were and the spot where they needed to go. Kannica fluttered from her previous perch to a convenient spot on the ground. Folding her wings to her side, she examined the map and studied its miniscule details.

"Now, where do we start?"

--------------

When Elora woke up, she immediately regretted it. When she slowly stirred from her short coma, pain shot up from every part of her body. The faun's limbs felt like lead as she struggled weakly to fight off the pain. Her head felt like someone was jabbing a thousand hot picks in her skull, and it felt like fire was coursing through her veins instead of blood. When she opened her eyes, even the low flickering of the dungeon's torches was too bright for her. Convulsing violently, the faun brought herself to her knees and vomited whatever was left in her stomach. She slumped on the hard, moldy cot that she was lying on, bile still dribbling out of her mouth.

"I must admit, Mortigon's pretty clever. Not only does he know how to cause his victims as much pain as he possibly can, but he never kills them in the progress. Whatever spell he cast upon you when he caught you spying isn't going to kill you, but it will definitely feel like it will." a familiar voice replied. Elora listened to the telltale sounds of a clutch clicking against the hard stone tiles. Letting her eyes focus, she saw Vincent, who, with the exception of a clutch tucked underneath his right arm, looked the same as when she spied on both of them. She took the time to notice that, unlike Changeling, the cells were fairly clean, as Vincent examined her.

"Hey, you're that scientist that works for Mortigon." Elora replied softly, fighting back more stabs of pain in her body. When she coughed, Vincent took out a napkin and wiped the spittle and bile from her lips. His eyes were a very deep shade of brown, but they were bloodshot from lack of sleep. He kept watching her and, when he saw that she was well enough to talk to, explained.

"Yes, and I'm the only licensed doctor in this dump. If it wasn't for me, you'd be begging me to die." Vincent replied, somewhat darkly, as he twirled an empty syringe in his free hand. "Mortigon ordered me not to use painkillers, but what the crazy rotter doesn't know won't hurt him."

"And it'll hurt Elora a lot less. That was definitely a torture spell of the highest degree...except that he sort of skimped on the last incantation of that spell. You're _supposed_ to be bleeding internally." A voice, Ripto's most likely, drifted out from one the cells next to Elora's. Regaining enough strength to look around, she found that she was alone with only her husband and Vincent. Two prisoners to each cell. Laigon may have been stupid, but Mortigon showed more inklings of cunning with each revelation.

"Still, it doesn't explain why you're working for him. I'd figure someone as smart as you would've moved on from being someone's minion and made some sort of career for yourself." Spyro said with a hint of venom in his voice. From what Elora could see, he had a lot less chains on him than when he was being transported here. Save for a heatproof collar chained to his neck, Spyro was free to roam around. His wrists still showed signs of bruising where Muugara had chained him up.

"Sadly, this is my career. He saw that I had the knowledge of what he needed and whisked me away. Now I'm basically playing the role that Airazor filled in the past; lackey to some cruel monster that wants to play around with Gigas Crystals. He doesn't have the omnipotent White and Black Gigas Crystals, but he doesn't need them. His plan is much more sinister than that. After all, with a prophecy linked by bloodlines and the hatred of an accursed Holder, who needs them?" Vincent explained. A moment of awkwardly filled silence passed before anyone summoned enough strength to speak.

"Gee, for someone who hates working for him, you sure are keeping us in the dark." Spyro hissed. The brown-scaled dragon blanched at the sight of Spyro's glare. The heroic dragon's purple eyes, normally bright and filled with a spirit for adventurer, had hardened and seemed to belong to the eyes of a madman. Vincent took a step backwards, his clutch held tightly to his body.

"I'm sworn to secrecy. Mortigon will kill me and hang my carcass on a pike before I reveal any part of his plans." Vincent replied. He turned his back to Spyro, as if the sight of the glowering dragon was almost too much to bear. With his brown eyes riveted to the wall, he kept his stance firm. "Every part of his plan must fall into place. The best thing for you to do is to lay low and stay in the dungeons until the children that Mortigon needs for his plan come here. After all, that's the best thing to-"

Vincent never had a chance to finish his sentence. He gagged when Spyro wrapped his arm around his throat and pulled him backwards. The clutch fell from his hands when Spyro slammed him against the dungeon's wall, his hands wrapped firmly around his throat. Vincent found himself staring into a face so filled with hatred and disgust that he was instantly reminded of Mortigon.

"To hell with your secrecy, you goddamned piece of dragon dung!" Spyro hissed, his grip tightening. Spit fluttered from his lips as he yelled at Vincent, who was trying desperately to keep balance on one good leg. "I'm NOT going to sit idly in a dungeon and twiddle my thumbs while my son's life is at stake!"

Elora, despite the grogginess and pain racing through her body, stood up and reached a quivering hand towards her husband. When Vincent's eyes locked with hers, he made a pathetic whine.

"Spyro, please..."

"Elora, don't encourage this waste of skin! Did you even hear what he said? He referred to our children as a part of some plan, not as actual-"

"SPYRO, YOU'RE CHOKING HIM!"

Elora's exclamation brought Spyro back to his senses. He froze in his spot, staring almost in awe at the fact that his hands were squeezed so tightly around Vincent's throat. The brown-scaled dragon he was holding was clawing desperately at the air, his face turning blue. Immediately, he let go, his entire face cloaked with the expression of utter shock. Vincent sank to the floor, wheezing for air and clutching his broken leg. Hard brown eyes stared angrily into Spyro's as the dragon found the air to speak.

"So, twenty years and you're still a bully. You picked on me when I was just learning my profession and you pick on me here. Do you think brute force alone is going to stop this monster, you purple Neanderthal? Why do you think Red and Gnasty Gnorc got their tails kicked, huh?"

An awkward silence filled the room as he sat there on the floor, massaging his throat. Elora offered him his crutch, which he hastily snatched away from her hands. As Spyro helped him up to his feet, he tried again with his approach.

"There has to be some way, Vincent. Like I said, the worst thing is sitting around idle and doing nothing."

"Well, there is one way, but it won't involve you, Spyro." Vincent hissed as he jabbed a finger in Spyro's direction. He slowly hobbled out of Spyro and Elora's cell. As he shut the reinforced-magic door to the cell behind him, he noted that neither dragon nor faun rose to escape. He leaned against the wall adjacent to the cell, his arms folded across his chest and his one good leg used for a balance.

"Mortigon's got tabs on all the Gigas Holders in here and he's not letting even one of you crawl away. Not you, not Ripto, not even Mell or Nazza can escape." He paused to shrug his shoulders; he loathed admitting it, but he'd certainly enjoy watching Mortigon being defeated by Spyro. "Which is a shame too; I have information from the outside that there's a lizard thief named Dishmail or whatever the heck they called her and she's building a resistance against Mortigon. Be kind of crazy to send one of you there, unless I want my skin hanging from the rooftops as a flag..."

"That doesn't mean you can't."

Vincent jumped when he heard Ripto's voice; he had forgotten that there were more than just two prisoners in the dungeon. His spot against the wall was at too far of an angle to see the short riptoc sorcerer in his cell, but Vincent's ears could hear Ripto pacing around, chains clicking dully at his side.

"M-me?"

"Yeah, you said Mortigon's got tabs on all the Gigas Holders. What he doesn't have a tab on is you, a lowly scientist. You can go talk to Dishmail and get her to help our children." Ripto replied. Several of the other prisoners voiced their approval at this idea. Vincent felt like he wanted to sink into the wall behind him and disappear; he hated Mortigon, but he didn't want to risk his life.

"But Mortigon needs me too! He's going to notice if I disappear!" Vincent shouted, sounding a bit more hysterical and pathetic than what he intended. If Vincent could see through solid stone, he would've seen Airazor roll his eyes while nursing the wounds he received from Mortigon; his attitude seemed almost _too _familiar to what Airazor had to go through back in the days.

"I'll make up a story. Mortigon is still living in the past; to him, I'm still an arrogant jerk who hates dragons."

"You're still an arrogant jerk, honey. You just somewhat tolerate dragons instead of hate them." Snowflake replied with a chuckle. Vincent had healed her first, and already she was returning to her normal self. Using a piece of chalk that Vincent was kind enough to give, she was currently amusing herself by drawing random doodles to pass the time. Ripto rolled his eyes at her.

"Very nice of you to support me, dear. Anyways, I'll make up a story that involves magical annihilation, I take a few lumps, and you go off Scott-free. I'm agreeing with Spyro on this that I'd rather take my chances and see if this 'Dishmail' will help me instead of just worrying."

Airazor shuffled on his spot on the floor. He decided to add his own two cents in the whole discussion.

"I don't know. Mortigon's pretty cruel, and I doubt he'll hold back if-"

"Okay, fine! I'll do it, okay? No discussion, no questions asked. I'm doing it. I'm sick of being a doormat!"

Vincent was surprised at himself by his sudden outburst. He stood there for a moment, bathed in the light of the flickering torches hanging above him, as he tried to piece together his thoughts. He thought he saw Spyro nodding in approval, but he was unsure if it was just a figment of his imagination. He ran a hand across the soft black frill that, like all Artisan Dragons, ran across his spine and ended at his forehead. Looking down at his feet, he added something to his statement.

"Just...just...if I die, try to remember me, okay?"

"Will do, dragon. Now, walk a little more to the left so I can see you." Ripto answered. When Vincent did what he commanded, he caught a glimpse of Ripto pointing a glowing scepter in his direction. Mortigon, to prove that he wasn't afraid of any of the Gigas Holders, had made sure that the magic-casters like Ripto and Eledor still had their magic wands and scepters so that they could see that they were powerless against him. Seized by the instinct to flee, the dragon remained rooted to his spot against the wall as the room became flooded in bright red light.

"Oh, and make sure you scream as loud as you can. I want to make this teleportation spell look like your demise. As soon as you land outside of Mortigon's Palace, find Dishmail." Ripto shouted to the terrified dragon. He hurtled a large fireball in Vincent's direction, one that looked like an extremely small comet and in a color that reminded the dragon of fresh blood. Immediately, Vincent's mind began to picture what would've happened if that elimination spell was real. Blackened spot on the wall. Scorched dragon skeleton. The smell of blood filling the room...

Vincent didn't need Ripto's reminder to know when to scream.

---------------

"Well, welcome to the Legendary Riptoc Flats."

After about one day of traveling through a long chain of connected caves, the group was finally acquainted with unadulterated desert sun as they sat perched on a large cliff. Several of them had to shield their eyes from the light as Kannica brandished her wings and motioned to the land in front of her. Spreading as far as the eye could see, a giant patch of sand spread out in front of them. Unlike the desert they had traveled across before they entered the caves, there was absolutely no shrubbery, dunes, or scattered boulders; the ground look like a colossal piece of sandpaper resting in-between the caves and their next destination.

At the sight of the Riptoc Flats, Red snorted, flames sparking from his nostrils as he did.

"Why are they legendary? Looks like nothing but a giant sandbox to me."

Kannica turned, her expression like that of a used car salesman. She held her wings over her head in an elaborate gesture as she explained.

"Ah, that's where the secret lies. You see, this is where the Desolation Riptocs live, large gruesome monsters that burrow through this area, eating anything they can get their hands on!" Kannica replied, making wild gesticulations with her claws as she did so. She made little shadow puppets of a dinosaur devouring some people on the opposite wall to add effect to her words.

"Uh, wow. There's two Riptoc kids standing right by me and I'm expected to care about where some dinosaurs live." Red said, not all impressed by what he was hearing.

"Oh, but you will care. You see, the thief that gave us the map made a very valid point. We have to travel through all the territories of the three rival races in order to get to Mortigon's Palace in the quickest amount of time. We could go around, but that will add, I don't know, an extra two weeks of traveling in the desert." Kannica answered. The hybrids looked at one another, knowing very well that they couldn't spare an extra two weeks while their parents were trapped in the hands of Mortigon. Pyran, puffing out his chest in what he thought was a heroic fashion, he stepped out towards the Riptoc Flats.

"Well, no sense in just standing he-"

His sentence was cut off when Kannica violently tugged on his tail. The draun froze, his left foot dangling in midstep.

"You idiot! You don't just stroll in the Desolation Riptoc's territory!" Kannica shouted. Pyran stepped backwards, his heart pounding against his chest. He tried to cover up his fear by rolling his eyes and folding his arms across his chest.

"Well, why not? They're underground. What's the worst that could happen?" Pyran replied.

Kannica decided for a visual aid, so to speak. Without speaking, she picked up a very large pebble off the ground. Testing its weight with her claw, she deemed it heavy enough, and with a burst of air magic, she tossed it a long ways away from where she was standing. The hybrids, Gnasty Gnorc, and Red watched as the rock twirled in the air before it came to rest on the Riptoc Flats. As soon as the rock touched the ground, a large monster burst from the sand with a monstrous roar that filled the air. The monster was definitely thirty stories high in the least, with a large sinewy body as thick as a redwood tree, scales the same color as dried blood, and two very skinny arms that looked almost useless in their design. Its mighty jaws snapped at the air, catching the rock in its mouth and shattering it to dust, before the creature fell to the ground. Like a breaching dolphin, the Desolation Riptoc slid into the ground, leaving no trace that it was ever on the surface.

Pyran stood there, his entire body shaking violently. Kannica grabbed his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"That could've been you, dragon spawn. Desolation Riptocs can sense pretty much every vibration. Set your foot on that ground and you're a goner. Talk loudly and you're a goner." Kannica yelled, sounding very much like a drill sergeant. Pyran summoned enough strength to nod before the gargoyle pushed him aside. Karydor looked hesitantly at Pyran's quivering form and then walked slowly to where Kannica was perched. She tapped the gargoyle gently on the shoulder and expressed her concerns.

"Then it's impossible to travel across, right?"

Kannica shrugged her shoulders, her gaze never leaving the dangerous flats in front of her.

"Well, no. Fliers have no problems; The Queen made a pact with the Desolation Riptocs that none of them will eat any flying troops for Mortigon in exchange for her splitting the prisoners she captures. In fact, I think I remember one of the gargoyles saying that after Gnasty Gnorc was taken care of by The Queen, Red was going to be the dinner for the Desolation Riptoc Chieftain."

"THAT COULD'VE BEEN ME?" Red paled at the thought of him replacing that rock's role, being caught in that Desolation Riptoc's jaws. He had more comfort when he was under the impression that The Queen was going to kill him; this new angle on his imprisonment disturbed him and, temporarily, shattered his aloof and haughty attitude that he was famous for.

"Be lucky that we arrived, then. The problem we have to deal with is the fact that there's quite a few of us that can't fly. A lot of us may have wings, but Pyran's the only one that can manage a steady flight. We can barely glide on our wings, plus even Red can't carry Gnasty Gnorc across those flats." Torin added. He looked at Pyran with concern, wondering if the Son of Spyro was going to regain his composure before their dangerous trip over the flats.

"Well, it's not like we don't have a spell that will solve this problem. Being such an advanced and powerful member of my species, I know a spell that will make you walk on air. Rather complex, but my superior intellect is enough to master this spell." Kannica replied, a smug expression carved on her face. Suddenly, she turned to the other members of the group, her expression exceedingly savage as she addressed her comrades.

"But mark my words, you'd better be dead silent or else we're all goners. Desolation Riptocs keep a pact, but believe me, sometimes they choose to conveniently forget when they hear an opportunity. Many a gargoyle and Desolation Gnorc has fallen to their might just because they sneezed, burped, or farted at the wrong time." Kannica replied. At this shocking new revelation, Pyran made a horrified squeak. Calub and Glacier, in a frighteningly good mood, were too busy snickering at the fact that Kannica said the word 'fart' to be scared at all.

Immediately, a green flash of light filled the air. The group jumped back as what looked to be a laser beam shot from Kannica's hands and sliced across the sky towards the horizon. She turned to them with a great smile on her face.

"There, now all of you can walk on the air as if it were a bridge. It's a long, straight, and silent walk, but I know of an oasis that the Desolation Riptocs don't touch. We'll get there, rest for a little bit, and then change directions to the volcanoes. I must warn you though. One sound and we're dead. And believe you me, if you're the cause of my death, my ghost is going to reek spiritual vengeance on your ghostly ass in the afterlife!"

It was the worst three hours of Pyran's life. For the entire time, he had to concentrate on not making a single sound as he half-walked, half-jogged across the hard patch of air that served as a path towards their next destination. Everywhere around him was so silent that his heartbeat and his breathing sounded almost obscenely loud to him. Part of him thought it was kind of neat, walking on a path that he couldn't see at all, and part of him was terrified to see a few stories drop hanging below him with no visible means of stopping his fall. Instead, he kept his eyes away from the ground and riveted towards Kannica, who was flying in the lead in an absolute straight line. Sometimes she'd turn her head back to check on the others to make sure that all were present. Gnasty Gnorc, because of his metal armor, had to wear an enchantment that made every part of him and his armor mute. The only side effect, since the enchantment was a rather powerful one, was that he was going to be speechless for the next six hours.

When they finally saw the Great Zephyr Lake, the kids could hardly contain their excitement. Smack dab in the middle of the Desolation Riptocs' territory was a giant lake ringed with beautiful trees, giant rocks and boulders, and colorful vegetation, with a giant rock ring on the outside to prevent the Desolation Riptocs from destroying the land. It was like the world before the cataclysm, just in one small spot, had remained intact for everyone that found it to enjoy. As soon as they set foot on the safe soil, the children cried in joy. Several of them took off their packed provisions and ran headfirst into the lake, feeling fresh cold water for the first time in days.

Karydor was among the last of the hybrid children to relax inside the lake. She was still sorting out her provisions while the other hybrids dove through the pristine waters while still wearing their clothing. She smiled cheerfully at her friends, who seemed to be motioning to her about something. She saw them waving, unreadable expressions on their faces. They were so eager for her to jump in, but not before she filled the canteens with the water from the oasis.

"Finally, we can get some rest and relaxation, guys. No more Queen, no more Muu Dragons, no more Desolation Riptocs."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Karydor immediately froze, her hands dangling over her backpack. She knew that voice before; she heard it once before. Immediately her mind was flooded with the vivid imagery of a Muu Dragon attacking her father at a party, his savage metallic claws sending bolts of electricity through his body. Tears welled up in her eyes. 'No, it couldn't be. He couldn't have found us...' she thought to herself.

The rhygon turned her head, and sure enough, Muugara was standing just a few feet in front of the entire group. He had that same horrible grin he wore when he delightfully defeated Airazor at the party, that same happy expression when he was causing pain in others. Calub was right, Mortigon did know that they were coming and was kind enough to send them a welcoming party.

Muugara activated his ever-familiar weapon, smiling as electricity arched across his fingertips. He advanced towards the group, his toeless feet making hardly any sound as he stepped through the vegetation. Karydor attempted to stop him by throwing a large explosion of magic in his general direction, but the spell harmlessly bounced off a shield that Muugara was clever enough to bring. With a dangerous close range weapon attached to one hand, a shield activator and various other gadgets attached to his arms, and a pair of canons attached to his body in a way that reminded Torin of Gulp, Muugara looked like a cybernetic nightmare. He cracked a hideous smile to everyone in front of them, looking very eager to bathe in their blood. He held out his arms for all to see, letting the sun dance on all of his metallic inventions attached to them.

"Muugara is in a very good mood today, finding such a wonderful prize of both hybrids and runaway slaves. I'll tell you what; all of you kiddies step quietly from that lake, stand still, and let the electricity do its work. We should make it easy for all of us..."

-------------

End of Chapter 6

**Yep. Cliffhanger. **

**Sorry about the lack of Mortigon and Muugara. They'll show up more.**

**  
Yes, I'm well aware that there's a certain Spyro game that says otherwise in terms of Red's evilocity. I'm just going to play the Devil's Advocate here and attempt to explain that, except for the cameo by Grendor, this series is in no way connected to any handheld games. Plus I'd like to be consistent. I can't have Red evil in one chapter and good the next. It'd confuse everyone, including me. **

As for other chapters, I will NOT be this slow. I just ran into some problems when school resumed, what with AP classes and math, and well, now look at me. This chapter is four months late. I'm terribly sorry.


End file.
